Timeless
by illogical squeeks
Summary: The future, the past, entwined in the most strange ways. What could a businessman in the future want with the heart of Davy Jones and the mind of Cutler Beckett? Wiping out New Piracy, perhaps?
1. PROLOGUE

TIMELESS

PROLOGUE

Imagine a place far in the future.

Imagine a place far in the past.

Imagine the gap in between those two places.

That's... that's quite, quite far.

It's hard to imagine how two such places would become conjoined. After all, even _now_ is a time that is far from the time of long ago. The human race has moved on so quickly, that even a few weeks ago seems to fade into the infamous Mists of Time. Even what you ate for dinner two days ago vanishes into the very same mists. Let alone a time when pirates roamed the seas and rich women fawned in ballgowns.

Time has always been seen as a fairly immovable thing; it cannot be touched, tweaked, it cannot be changed. How could that possibly be achievable? No, no it couldn't. And that was that.

Apparently.

----------

Time travel, being a danger to the Very Substance of Time and Space and all, was never publicly displayed. Which really was a shame—it's inventor (one of an entire team) had been hoping for a Nobel Peace Prize. At the very _least_. But it was all hushed up—and the news never got out. Very few knew of it.

It was, as everything seems to be, created in Japan.

How far into the future this took place is of no concern to you. Further then tomorrow, but not quite the next millennium. It doesn't matter. It's just... the Future. The bright and jolly future? Hmmph. Not exactly.

My, haven't the human race made a mess of our planet? In fact, I'm pretty sure that they would all be dead by this time, if not for the inventions of a man who really won the Nobel Peace Prize. Rainforests were being cut down too fast to cope with – so to keep the oxygen supply up, a certain Doctor Lori Fielding came up with something. She was not a doctor of the medical kind—but a scientist.

I don't really expect you to understand the technicalities. Her invention was a machine that took in carbon dioxide from the air and turned it into oxygen, much like plants. In fact, it used cellulose from plants as one of it's key features—and somehow, molecules and magical spangly bits and whatnot ended up with oxygen. All in all, it was a lifesaving invention.

There were many of them in the world now—huge, grey blocks, stationed at various points throughout the world; which had grown ever so slightly smaller. Ice caps melting. Sea water rising. Bits of land below sea-level were no longer save to live on. The population, however, continued to increase. Where could they go?

Upwards, of course. The height of the buildings in these times were insanely big. In fact, nowadays, many children grew up without ever setting foot on the ground. There were walkways and thing like that, for transport. Flying cars? Pssht, no—people are never going to realize that they will never happen. Far too damaging for the environment; which is what matters in these times. They had the oxygen under control; but they still had the ozone layer to worry about, which was stretched as thin as clingfilm nowadays.

Now that these new 'breathing machines' had been invented, people seemed to not care any more about how many trees they cut down. There was a sudden surge of tree-death, so to speak. They needed more oxygen. So... plankton! Plankton were the key! They already supplied the world with oxygen, but they were being killed off, once the sea became so polluted that the reason you wore goggles to the beach were for more then seeing underwater.

Ah, yes, the sea. Yes, polluted, and much more big. Seeing as the sea had increased so much, there was a lot more of it about. And people began taking to living on the sea – free of land, for the most part. Over time, these boat-dwellers began sticking together; entire villages of boats, moving in unison. And they became less trusted with those who remained on their toweringly high skyscraper homes, on land.

They grew separate from each other. Distant. They didn't need each other any more.

Soon, the boat-dwellers being looked down on, as the dirt-poor scourge of the world. But they were happy enough with their reputation. They remained living on their boats; entire populations of moving, floating villages. There was something almost picturesque about them.

But where there are people, there is crime.

In other words... pirates. Pirates were born again. Perhaps not as you remember them, but it was still the same. This is the future. And the future holds... pirates!

----------

Benjamin Buck hated pirates. Of course, _he_ would—merchant ships that carried goods from one country to another were attacked daily, and then the goods taken to their mysterious floating villages, where the loot would be shared out. They did grow some food and livestock on board these ship-villages, but not much. They needed to steal to eat.

He was a very highly ranked member of one of the biggest trading megacompanies of his time – Nutriware Ltd. This was one of the main sources of food in the world. Because of the lessening amount of fertile soil and land, food was pretty hard to come across. Nutriware Ltd were one of the first companies to come up with the idea of factory food... for life. Huge parts of Africa had been cleared out—it's population seemed to be the only one dwindling in the increased heat of Global Warming—and factories implanted. And food was made by very unnatural means.

He leaned back in the meeting with his second-in-command; a certain Adele Merritt, a cold and calculating businesswoman, much like himself. She did not seem to have a single scrap of personality to her; smooth, plastic skin and shiny hair pulled back in a bun, held in place with your standard black clip. A suit that was neither too revealing nor too constricting was what she was wearing—as usual.

"Time travel has not yet been authorized by the government," Adele said, tucking a strand of fringe behind one ear in a professional manner.

"But that doesn't matter, Miss Merritt," Benjamin said, leaning forwards with a smile. Adele's face remained completely expressionless, as usual. Sometimes, Benjamin thought she was the closest thing to a robot that the human race had come up with so far. (No droid-slaves yet, I'm afraid)

"Even if you use the time machine, there is no proof that such a... _man_ exists. There is no point in nearly throwing the universe into chaos for a legend," She inclined her head, "Especially a legend as foolish as Davy Jones."

"But think of it," Benjamin smiled grimly, leaning back into his chair again. Behind him, a ceiling-to-floor window displayed skyscrapers outside, and the fact that he was higher up the most of them. The closer to the sky you were, the higher your profile—both literally and figuratively. The bottommost floors were dirty, stained slums. "People have been dismissing the existence of... magic for so long. But there have been recent breakthroughs... and it seems... _logical_," He smiled as he used the word that Adele Merritt followed like a god. Logic. If it was logical, it was the right thing to do.

"Hmm," Adele said, doubtfully, but seeming reassured by the use of her favourite word nonetheless, "And what of the matter of splitting the universe, ripping apart the dimensions of time and space, and utterly destroying everything in creation?" She raised a pencil-thin eyebrow.

"Oh, don't worry," Benjamin said with a wave of his hand, "We'll put him back."

* * *

**NB: **Another Hairbrained Idea™ brought to you by illogical squeeks! I just happened to think of this idea--and I'm wondering if it's worth continuing. It is a little, uhm, actually it's very, very strange. And it only gets stranger... 

Disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean is not mine. The story and various OCs are mine, but they don't really matter. No money being made from this, yadda yadda.

Addition: I can't belive I did this, but... up there, I accidentally wrote 'cellulite' instead of 'cellulose'. It's fixed now, thanks to a certain sharp-eyed Pirata.Acquamarina, but still... how embarrassing! I guess you see what you expect to see, heh... Aaanyway yes. Methinks I should perhaps spend less time partying, and more time sleeping... o-O;


	2. ONE

ONE

The captain stood at the helm of his ship, a pipe in between his lips. His eyes were distant – his expression completely impassive. Nothing could get in. Nothing would get out. It was the way it was. It was how a captain should act, and it was... safer. The crew on board the _Flying Dutchman_ weren't exactly what you could call close. And that was how Davy Jones liked things.

Friendship? Who needed it? Friendship in a crew only led to mutiny, and mutiny – well, obviously, wasn't in his best interests at the moment. Though who in their right minds would begin a mutiny against Davy Jones? The _Dutchman_ was a time... of punishment. Not the sort of place you skipped to for a jolly good time while you cheated death. Pah.

It just didn't _work_ like that.

Just off the coast of Casparas, they were in waiting. In waiting?! But the _Dutchman_ didn't plan strategic attacks at various points all over the world for some kind of ulterior motive... no, that sounded more up Cutler Beckett's street.

Cutler Beckett. Ugh.

Just the name made Davy want to kill something.

Something that would scream girlishly.

Yes. Cutler Beckett had—through some undesirable foul-up—had ended up in possession of his heart. And this was a terrible, terrible thing. Davy knew that there was a certain amount of disobeying he could do—Beckett wouldn't stab his heart and waste all of that searching for something trivial.

Beckett's logic worked against him sometimes. But not often, sadly. Davy Jones was in his own world, staring out at the sea, and at _Paula's Decent_, the ship that had just left Casparas, and was cutting through the ocean steadily. They'd trail it for a bit – underwater, of course. Such a small ship, they wouldn't even need to call on the kraken for this one. His crew alone could take it.

He didn't know why Beckett wanted this ship. He didn't care, either. Everything Beckett ordered, he treated with a bored sort of disinterest. But he was much more worried then he cared to admit. Beckett had his heart, after all—he could easily murder him. He puffed on his pipe again, deep in thought, watching _Paula's Decent_ bob through the waves.

Behind him, the deck buzzed with life—life that didn't, to be honest, have a right to be there. And many of the crew wished they had chosen death anyway; though now, things were getting... interesting. Now, obviously, many of them would be happy to see their captain dead; but it wasn't that simple.

Nothing ever was.

The crew served Davy Jones with a mindless obedience that was beyond them. They were no longer their own people – they were controlled by their ship, their contract, their captain. They couldn't _not_ obey Jones; it was completely out of the question. And they most probably hated it.

Palafico, his personal guard, stood motionless nearby—not near enough to intrude on his personal bubble, but not so far away that he could not defend him from, well, anything and everything. He'd learned exactly where to stand and how stand, having served his captain for a long, long time. Two swords glistened in the candlelight, looking almost liquid, attached to his hands.

Even though the wind was whistling, the waves were crashing, the ropes were creaking, the sails flapping and the crew idly chattering in low, guttural tones, the silence seemed immense on that night, as Davy's gaze penetrated the night—though his mind was a million miles away.

----------

Harry Knighton was one of the best. Secret agent? Hah, don't give him that hoity-toity, airy-fairy, upper-class _crap_. He was born and raised on the streets, living rough; he knew what fighting was about. He'd managed to get himself enrolled in one of the top training academies of the world, and one day, he'd been spotted... and since then, he'd done great things.

He wasn't sure if anything could have prepared him for a time-travelling mission, though—and it was one of the first, too. Nobody had used the machine to travel more then five minutes back and forwards in time... people were worried about the, you know, tearing apart the fabric of time and space.

The machine was fit with a device that kept track of the time you had been in, so you could go back at the relative right time (say you are away from your time for an hour—then you should return an hour ahead of the time you left, or things will become messy).

You see, time has been tampered with, and experimented on, and it works like this; every single microsecond is another universe; another world. The universe is happening all at the same time, sliced up next to each other, like a loaf of bread. In the universe you're in now, this is happening—in a universe of the future, you could be climbing Mount Everest—in the next universe behind you, everything is happening one microsecond behind, and in the one behind that, another microsecond... and so on.

It's all very complicated.

So, in a way, everything is happening at once. Somewhere, far behind the universe you are in, _right now_, there may be dinosaurs, and in one way ahead of you, _right_ _now_, there are—cough, cliché, cough—flying cars. So time travel isn't, in fact, a travel through time; but through universes.

I told you it was complicated.

But Harry had to learn all of this junk, as well as how to work the machine, and train for several months for his little expedition back in time. In theory, it was easy—but he was dreading it as much as a journey into outer space. It felt much further away, at any rate.

At the same time, _not_ doing it was not an option. He was given five highly-trained men, and together, they set off on their journey.

----------

I'm afraid there's no police phone-box or magical car for the journey; in fact, it was fairly boring. Inside a room that could be sealed closed and vacuumed (and I don't mean that in the sense of going at it with a hoover, either), there was what looked like a capsule, in which the six men would travel.

Look, I'm not even going to try to explain how it works, alright? Something to do with dimensions, yap, yap, yap. If I _did_ explain it all, you still probably wouldn't get it anyway.

"_Excellent_, Miss Merritt!" Benjamin exclaimed, clapping his hands together in glee as he watched through some protective glass, at the capsule being loaded up and readied for it's maiden voyage. He didn't know where or how Adele had obtained blueprints to the time machine—and he didn't ask, either. He could only assume it involved a lot of blackmail, intimidation, and brutal murder. Adele Merritt was his secretary—but she was also so much more then that.

"Sir," Was all she replied, her face as emotionless as ever—though he could tell that she disapproved of this.

But this little pod... it could travel through time and space, that sort of thing, you know? A problem was, though they knew about what time to chuck them into, the seventeenth century (they had to get it right to the last microsecond, mind you), they weren't too sure _where_. They chose a spot in a city called Casparas, which research had showed was where one of Davy's victims was claimed. A small ship by the name of _Paula's Decent_ – no survivors.

"And why are we doing this, sir?" One of the five men accompanying Knighton, who here went by nothing more then Spider, asked him. The men all had their code-names—ooh, this is getting dramatic—which related to insects (or arachnids, of course); Spider, Fly, Mosquito, Flea and Bluebottle (though Bluebottle got called Blue. It was easier that way).

"Don't ask questions you don't need the answers to," Knighton said—who was known basically as 'sir' or 'Knighton', as felt he had no need for silly codenames, "Just do as you are commanded. We have to bring this guy back, and he's... he's going to be a little bit strange-looking, apparently..."

He had no idea.

* * *

**NB: **...this is the first time I've had nothing to say... uhm, thanks for the reviews, I guess! I hope my glimpse into the future isn't too corny--I thought that it just might be...


	3. TWO

TWO

Travelling in time was a bit anticlimactic, to be honest. There was no wild shaking, dizzying spinning or alternative new-age dance music—just kaput, and they had to assume they had arrived. They looked down at the clock of their machine; eleven at night. Just in time to catch _Paula's Decent_, board her without being seen, and when attacked; sneak onto Davy's vessel. And then for the capturing of one man who may be able to help them with their piracy problems.

"Disembark," Knighton snapped to the others. Fly—one of the two females on the mission, uncurled from the control panel, the driver's seat so to speak, and began turning the hatch open—the pod was very reminiscent of a submarine.

In silence, the six black-clad men and women climbed out of the hatch, and outside. There they stood, mostly in disbelief. When Knighton made his way out, he sucked in a breath too; he was highly trained, but the sight waiting him was like nothing he'd ever seen before. Nothing he could have expected, though he should have.

Peace. Sea. Cobblestone roads. Houses, only one to two stories high, picturesque and somewhat ramshackle. Grass, trees, flowers, hedges. They had landed on the beach, and behind them, a calm sea murmured and whispered to itself contentedly. Out to sea, they could see a few creaky, wooden ships, waving about in the ocean. Below their feet—sand, real sand! A bird looped lazily in the dark sky above them, and some trees swished on the shore.

It wasn't natural.

"Camouflage time machine, men," Knighton said, after allowing them a minute to get used to their surroundings. Though obviously a little shocked, they obeyed immediately; out of their pack, one of them drew out a sheet of crackling material, like tarpaulin, and the others fastened it over the pod—which had landed right up the beach, next to the cliffside; where nobody should stumble on it.

The sheet they had thrown over it was black in colour, but when activated, the millions of tiny, electrical threads each reflected the surrounding colour; giving off a sketchy, hazy effect, but hiding the pod completely nonetheless. They were all wearing black suits that were made of the same material, which—if activated—would do the same thing. Their suits were also bulletproof, fireproof, waterproof, and just about indestructible. Top-of-the-range; just like the people themselves. One of the best hit squads in the world, led by one of the best agents in the world.

This mission was very, very important.

"The _Decent_ leaves at midnight," Knighton said in his instructing tone, "We must be on board the vessel, hidden, before that time. Let's make a start." He smiled grimly. The pod was secured. "Acquire maps—Blue?"

"Sir," the agent known as Bluebottle nodded. He was the only one in the group who was wearing a helmet; it was electronic, and had infrared night-vision, information, maps and suchlike stored on it that came up on a little visor—everything they should need for their mission, as they had no contact with the future world any more. Messages could travel through space, but time? No...

"Lead the way," Knighton said with a curt nod. Blue turned and began walking, with Fly, the female driver, not so far behind. Blue looked a bit like a biker in his current outfit, done up in black with a blacked-out helmet on his head... and he was a scientist. A good enough fighter, too, but it was his intelligence that got him his place in the mission. Fly was a woman who could drive anything, anywhere; and fix up almost any car, plane or ship, with the right parts. She had dark brown hair that gleamed darkly, cut short and smoothed down.

Spider followed behind; he and Flea were the fighters of the group. They did hand-to-hand combat mostly, but they could fight with almost anything to hand. They—especially Spider—were not here for their intelligence, but they followed orders to a T, and that was all they needed. They were both bulky and well-built, and highly trained in body.

And last, but not least, Mosquito—the so-called 'zany' one of the group. There's always one. She was a weapons and explosives expert; and had a small arsenal of artillery on her person as they walked. Her hair was dyed a light purple, and stuck up in spikes; the female operatives had short hair, to stop it getting in the way during missions. It was the only way to go.

As they crunched across the sand, Fly looked up—she had a bad feeling. Like someone was watching her. She glanced around herself, and then carried on walking. It was nothing.

They arrived at the docks. Knighton nodded discreetly, and they all put a hand to their shoulders and pressed a couple of buttons that had been slyly sown into the fabric, and soon, the six people were gone—in their place was a patch of slightly blurry air.

----------

"All hands on deck! Get our yer swords! _Wake up_!" The shout echoed around the ship for a few seconds, and suddenly, there was chaos. Everyone on board _Paula's Decent_ sprung from their bunks, their stomachs clenched in fear—for this could only mean attack. And there was only one ship that risked attacks in the middle of the night...

Whispers about the _Flying Dutchman_ were scurrying over the ship as men stumbled up on to top decks—in time to be thrown back down again as cannons blasted the ship, splintering the sides, buckling the small sloop, making her groan as she rocked with the force of the blow. The _Decent_ (as she was sometimes known) was nearing her demise. Thudding feet on the deck, terrified shouts of men, leering laughs and other unearthly thumps. Terror was so thick in the air, it was almost tangible—and it had a taste, like tin, like iron, like blood.

"According to the records, this ship will go down in the next half-hour," A voice came—from, apparently, nothing. Just a faint, flickering patch of air.

"Then let's begin our move to the _Dutchman_," Another voice snapped, sounding impatient, as people moved about above them, and swords thunked into wood, "I don't like being cut off from where we come from. It's not... tactical."

"This is an important mission, Flea," Knighton growled, turning towards where Flea's voice had come from.

"Yes sir," Flea said, though there was a grudging tone to his voice.

"Let's go," Mosquito said, sounding faintly excited. She was known to be somewhat psychotic through missions sometimes, which gave her a bad reputation, but she always followed orders anyway. "We have to get this captain, right?"

Knighton grunted in reply, and they slipped up through a trap door.

----------

"Any new crewmates for us today, then?" Davy Jones asked in a mocking tone, as he walked past the line-up of bedraggled men that had been dragged on board, about twenty minutes later. He snapped his head towards a bunch of them. "Throw all of the women and children overboard. They're useless." He snapped with contempt.

The crewmembers all followed his order immediately – their swords flashing, cutting throats, and bodies hit the water with multiple crashes, instantly swallowed up by the ocean, gone in the black waters, lost to the sea.

"Wretched," Davy snapped to them all, "Any of you strong enough to serve? I doubt it," He narrowed his eyes. The rest of the crew jeered and hissed as the remaining men cowered. A couple of them raised their arms, but Davy just sneered. "I've been given the order to leave no man alive," He jerked his head to Maccus, who turned and gave the order.

They were all killed.

"Back to your stations!" Davy snapped, and men began loping in all directions.

Davy turned and strode to his cabin—Palafico followed behind, stopping at the door. If Davy slammed it shut, it meant he wanted time in privacy; probably to begin his usual hammering on his organ. However, today, he left the door open—and Palafico walked in, standing respectfully by the door.

Suddenly, six figures seemed to step out of nowhere.

----------

They'd waited in what appeared to be the captain's cabin—and now, they saw him. They were trained professionals, and did not let their thoughts come onto their faces; well, apart from Mosquito, of course. She looked absolutely horrified about Davy's appearance. She shot Knighton a look, which said, _this is what you mean by 'odd-looking'?!_

Palafico had moved in front of Jones with surprising speed, his swords out, looking impassive, though slightly wary. The six people in black stood motionless for a minute, standing in a perfect straight line. It was rather intimidating. It was supposed to be.

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" Davy demanded haughtily, with no such guardedness as Palafico.

"We are here with orders for you, Jones," Knighton said.

"Am I going to like them?" Davy asked him, levelling his gaze at Knighton, icy eyes boring into his. Knighton willed himself to not look away, even allowing a small smile onto his lips.

"No," He replied, "You are going to hate them."


	4. THREE

THREE

"Did Beckett send you?" Davy asked, sharply. He was beginning to piece this together in his mind. Six official-looking people, orders, it all sounded like Beckett to him. Though these people were weird looking—and two of them were women, but their hair was all cut short. Beckett wouldn't employ _women_, surely? One of them had purple hair! Knighton paused for a second, and then answered again.

"Yes. Yes, he did." He said, with a certainty to his voice that should be unchallenged. This, of course, made Davy suspicious.

"Well, then... I suppose Beckett had better learn that I do _not_ take orders from his lackeys, and I don't care if they were to have... an accident. Several accidents. _Six_ accidents," Davy smirked at them, drawing a sword with his tentacled hand.

"Don't move," Knighton ordered lowly, as he and the rest of his squad pulled out various weapons, pointing them all towards Davy and Palafico. They seemed unaffected.

"What is _that_?" Davy asked with a frown. It was a thin, black, metal tube—with a light at one end, and a trigger at the other. Sort of.

"This is a... a machine. If I fire this at you, it will stop your heart," Mosquito said, explaining it in 'dumb' terms. The little laser-type gun sent a shockwave through the body, and shocked the heart into not beating, killing any creature instantly, and not leaving a single mark.

Uhm.

Davy and Palafico exchanged looks.

"Are you joking?" Davy asked, seriously, once he'd finished laughing. Mosquito looked to the others, and then shook her head, uncertainly. "Then you must be some sort of idiot," He snapped curtly, and then shouted out, "First-mate!"

----------

"And what are your opinions on this latest scheme?" Benjamin asked her, spinning his shiny office spinny-chair around once, before putting his hands on the desk and watching her, unblinkingly, his grey eyes cutting into her dark blue ones.

"I think that it's nonsense," She said curtly—she would hold back her own opinions usually, but if asked for them, why lie? Benjamin chuckled.

"Oh, my dear Adele," He said with a shake of his head, "But you don't understand!" He knew that she hated it when he called her dear, or Adele—or anything, really, that wasn't 'Miss Merritt'. Her business here was strictly professional; and nothing else. Benjamin didn't seem to see things that way, however. He was a sharp businessman, cocky too, but he couldn't resist playing around, flirting with every female he came into contact with and talking back to other powerful people.

"I understand perfectly," She said, fixing a cuff forwards with one severe tug, "You are wanting to wipe out New Piracy because of their attacks on Nutriware Ltd vessels. You think that some fictional character from over six centuries ago will help," She looked to him strictly over her glasses, "Which it wont."

"He is not a 'fictional character', Adele," He purred to her, "There is very much a chance of him existing. They're thinking of making magic into one of the sciences now, you know," He said, raising an eyebrow.

"I dare say 'magic' is a bit of an airbrushed way of putting it," Adele said, raising an eyebrow.

"That's what I've always called it... magic," Benjamin smiled to himself, "I don't know about the invisible particles in the air and quantum-physics and all that jazz. I just know that there is something—something we don't understand..." He finished airily.

"It all sounds very 'use the force' to me," Adele said, inspecting her nails. She looked up, and found Benjamin gazing at her, a small frown furrowing his brow.

"Who exactly is the superior here, Miss Merritt?" He asked—his voice was slightly hardened since the last sentence, but there were undertones of amusement and smugness to his rhetorical question. "Please don't interrupt me again."

"Yes, sir," She muttered, thinking that she hadn't _interrupted_ him as such, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. No, it wasn't her place to roll her eyes. She had to do as he said.

Always as he said.

"I think that this plan will be the perfect thing... and why not try it, anyway?" Benjamin asked, his light tone returning. He often bounced ideas off of Adele, to help pick out flaws and suchlike. She was very good at that sort of thing. "I hardly think we'll lose anything."

"Hmm," Adele said, somewhat dubiously.

----------

There was a crash outside. Some shouting. A couple of thuds. The air seemed to ripple for a moment... and then it was gone. Either way, no Maccus made his way into the cabin. Davy was obviously not too happy about this, but decided that he would simply have to fight them himself.

The squad of highly trained men were not happy with this situation. They may have found it amusing, had it not been so frustrating. Here they were, a set of top-class agents, from the future, with top-of-the-range weaponry, ready and perfectly capable of killing him, and he laughed in their face! Spider decided to have a pop at Palafico first, so that they could get straight to kidnapping Davy Jones, and with a single flick shot the laser at the towering half-coral-reef monster.

It had no effect.

"Your little light-pistols won't protect you," Davy said maliciously as he stepped forwards, cutlass held out.

"Yes, they will," Bluebottle said, flicking his laser to 'tranquillise', and quickly letting the red dot play about first Davy Jones, and then Palafico's temples. They barely had time to blink, before they were out like lights—falling to the floor almost in perfect unison, though Palafico managed to stagger forwards a little first.

New technology. Great, huh? At the correct frequencies, lasers can stimulate the brain to something something hormones something.

You don't need an explanation.

----------

Despite Bluebottle's efforts to explain it all to them, this time-travelling, universe-switching, loaf-of-bread theory took a lot of getting used to. They decided to leave the thinking to Blue, and the rest of it, they could handle. They were in the pod again, getting ready to return back to their correct time – they'd been gone for exactly one hour and four minutes, so they had to go back to the exact same time they'd left, but an hour and four minutes ahead.

Obviously. Cough.

Davy Jones' body was slung in the back, into a shallow pail of seawater. He wasn't really someone you could imagine unconscious—but it wasn't anything special. Sleeping like an angel. They'd left everything on board the _Dutchman_ as it was, and had stolen out from the back of the ship, having taken a barnacle-encrusted longboat and had to row quite a while.

And then they'd had to carry Davy's body over the beach too, because for some unexplained reason, he was _not allowed to touch the land_. Benjamin had been very specific about this point—he'd said that if Davy touched the ground, it was all over. But, after the long lug and all, the team were all feeling quite pleased with themselves. Another mission complete—a mission through _time_! Wowee! And it hadn't even been that hard.

Fly's fingers flicked over the control panels; not that she needed to do any real driving for this thing. She glanced over her shoulder once, before completing her controlling of the pod.

They all got that odd, static, hair-standing-up feeling... and then it was over.

They were home.

_With_ Davy Jones. Win!

* * *

**NB:** Thanks much for the reviews! If I've made any typos of the embarrassing sort (such as I did on the first page...) I would be grateful if you could point them out to me. It's good to nip these things in the bud. ;) 


	5. FOUR

FOUR

Davy Jones must never touch the ground. That was one thing that the researchers had shown—one thing that was pretty much clear. There was a loophole; he could walk in water from the sea whilst being on land; so, technically, he could stand in a bucket of seawater on land, as you have most probably seen. They had to take a lot of precautions about Davy's special, hmm, condition—they decided in the end that the simplest thing to do was get him some specially crafted shoes; with a special place for seawater in between the soles and the bottom of the inner shoe.

Logical, really.

"They're back! Everything went well!" Benjamin exclaimed, as a small speaker in his desk buzzed. He pressed down a button, and as predicted, the voice at the other end told him that Jones had been retrieved. Excellent.

He strode across the room, Adele dutifully following behind him, her heels clicking on the gleaming floor. They journeyed down the elevator, down to the very bottom floor that didn't, according to blueprints of the place, exist. A highly guarded place, right down below ground level; lower then the slums. Seeing as it would have taken a long, long time for the elevator to get all the way from the top of the colossal skyscraper to the bottom, it went down incredibly fast; gyroscopes were used to help keep balance as the elevator whisked downwards.

The place they arrived in was far different to the airy, white-and-grey, minimalist decorated office at the top of the Nutriware Ltd skyscraper. It was dark, with flickering halogen strips for their only source of light, and had the dankness of being underground. The walls were metal, the ceiling low, and the floor was cement.

Various men and women in coats scuttled around, looking efficient as they could as their boss strode confidently through the grimy walkway, flanked by Adele—who was looking as severe and disapproving as ever. This place was called the Labs, and they were not supposed to be here. All of the people here were not meant to be working here; officially, they were written down as janitors, chefs and suchlike. There were an awful lot of them.

A company like Nutriware Ltd did not get as far as it did by fully legal means—Benjamin reasoned that he wasn't _too_ much of a criminal; skim a little off there, take a little shortcut there, it wasn't major or anything. But he wasn't afraid to dabble in the dark side of the law.

Like the time machine. The team he had sent to retrieve Jones walked out of the time machine—five of them stood in a line, awaiting what to do next, but Knighton strode forwards, a scowl on his face.

"You told us he was 'odd-looking'... not a bloody cthulhu!" He snapped.

"He's not a 'cthulhu'," Benjamin said smoothly, "And please, remember who you are talking to." The scowl did not fade from Knighton's face. He was not the submissive type.

"When do we get our pay?" He asked, though he quietened his voice.

"Later, first, I would like to see him..." He shot a look to Adele, "See, I did tell you that such a creature must be based on more then pure fiction." Adele simply pursed her lips. "Bring him out," He ordered loudly, "And make sure he does not touch the ground without a layer of sea-water in between!" He snapped.

A special trolley was rolled out—to carry the unconscious Davy Jones from the time travelling machine to an assessment room where he would be examined. The top was ordinary enough, though it had a squishy, waterbed-like feel to it, as the mattress was full of seawater; to stop full contact with the ground without a layer of seawater in between. Four medical men stumbled into the pod, and pulled Jones out by each limb, splaying him onto the trolley top. Benjamin stepped forwards with a whistle.

My, he had exceeded his expectations. He had thought that the rumours may have been true in a way, but not... not _so much_. Tentacles glistened underneath the yellowy light, and barnacles covered him. A hefty, and deadly looking crab claw rested on the side of the trolley. The seawater-mattress seemed to work; Davy remained unaffected as he was laid on the trolley.

"I'd say that was a job well done," Benjamin said, rubbing his hands together, "Now, let's take a look at this... this specimen."

The trolley turned, and was rolled out of the room.

----------

"So when did he say he was paying us again?" Asked Spider, as he and the rest of the team took a break, cool drinks in their hands.

"I don't like Benjamin," Knighton said, narrowing his eyes.

"I was hoping that the time machine would be better," Fly said, a tad mournfully, "I like something with a little more speed." The others all looked at her for a moment—Fly was usually a clear-thinking and logical person; but when it came to driving, she lived for the thrills. An adrenaline junkie if there ever was one, she loved speed.

"Reckon we'll be going back in time again any time soon?" Mosquito asked.

"Knowing Buck, yes," Knighton muttered, getting to his feet, "Now let's go talk to one of his little servants. I'm sure they'll organize the paying—Buck's too lazy to go into details about stuff like that."

He was right.

----------

After the quick examination, the scientists that he had hired were more baffled then ever. Not only was this—err, _thing_ some sort of monster which they had never believed existed since age, well, eight—but... well...

"This... man has no pulse," A nervous-looking professor said, holding his stethoscope to the beast's chest.

"No pulse? Then how is it living?" Benjamin asked, leaning against the wall at the other side of the examination hall. Scientists were gathered around the unconscious body of Davy Jones, taking samples, X-Rays, brain scans and suchlike; finding out everything they could. They did not ask what this creature was—but several theories were bubbling up. Sea monster. Creature of the deep. Alien.

"We... we're not sure," The man stammered, "He doesn't..." he trailed off as a scientist came in and began putting X-Rays on the lighted wall. There was a wave of mutterings through the gathered doctors and scientists.

"He doesn't have a heart," A female doctor said, pulling her surgical mask down. "According to the X-Rays anyway. Permission to dissect and see what's going on inside this beast, sir?" She asked. Benjamin thought for a moment.

"How much longer do you think the tranquilliser will last?" He asked.

"Another half-hour or so, it depends on how quickly he can get over something like that," A man replied. Benjamin paused.

"I would like to speak to this Jones as fast as possible, so perhaps not," He finally said. The scientists seemed disappointed—they'd so wanted to discover more about this creature. They continued to bustle around him. "Oh, and insert the tracking device, will you?"

A woman in a white coat nodded, and picked up a scalpel, it's edge thin and deadly. Without hesitating, she lifted away the tentacles, and made a quick incision just below his jawline – a few beads of blood appeared, and she picked up a tiny microchip-like device, small and black and metal. She pushed it into the wound, and used an odd fusing device to seal the skin together again, wiping the blood away with an antiseptic wipe and then letting his tentacled beard fall back into place.

"He has a large scar on his chest, sir," A man said, after picking his way through several layers of slimy clothing, stiffened by salt and dirt. "A big one. About the place of the heart..."

"Well... there are lots of legends surrounding this Jones character, but I don't know too much about them... hmm..." Benjamin raised an eyebrow as he looked over the progress being made. "Seems some myths do exist, eh, Miss Merritt?"

"Yes, sir," She muttered, her eyes ever so slightly narrowed as she watched Jones. She noticed an eyelid flickering. "I think he's coming to, sir..." She said.

"But the tranquillising beam must have scrambled him enough to stay unconscious for another twenty minutes, at least," A doctor said, furrowing his brow. But what Adele said was right—his eyes finally flicked open, and he sat up jerkily. A good few of the doctors and scientists cowered back as he glared at them.

"What do you think you're doing?" He asked, softly, though he was a little dazed; his voice was a thick Scottish lilt, and his icy eyes bored into the nearest doctor—he reached out with a crab claw, grabbing him by the collar and dragging him closer.

"We, we, we..." The man seemed unable to continue as he stared in fright at the half-squid creature.

"Please unhand my associate, Jones," Came a calm voice. Davy's head jerked up, and his eyes narrowed further in distrust, as Benjamin stepped forwards. "I am Benjamin Buck. And you belong to me now." He gave a smarmy smile, and Davy frowned even more deeply.

"I belong to no one," He snarled in reply, before seeming to notice where he was, "Am I on land?" He asked, hoarsely, his eyes flickering around the room.

"Yes, but we have put seawater in the mattress you are lying on, therefore dividing you from touching solid ground with a layer of water from the sea. There is also similar in your shoes." Benjamin said with a smile. "Now, come with me to my office."

Davy stepped off of the mattress onto solid ground, putting his feet onto the ground as if afraid the floor was made of red-hot coals, with jagged bits of glass in between, and to top it off, a bed of nails underneath. Nothing happened, but he felt the bounce of water in his new shoes—weirdly shiny boots that he didn't like. One of them was a special shape, to fit around his crab-claw leg.

"What did you do to my old boot?" He asked.

"Oh, we threw _that_ out," Benjamin said, wrinkling his nose, "It was a little... over-used. We decided there was no point in keeping it."

Davy glared at the man, suspicion and dislike easily visible on his face.

"Are you related to anyone called Beckett, by any chance?" He asked.


	6. FIVE

FIVE

Davy stood in front of Benjamin's desk, his glare still heated enough to melt iron. He felt like he had done this before, somehow. Benjamin sat there, cool and collected, his fingers steeped, one eyebrow raised. And next to him stood a woman, standing stiffly, her arms folded, her eyes boring into his. Now, in general, people were intimidated by his appearance; it was natural. But this woman, not a single expression was on her face, apart from a tiny tinge of distaste. It wasn't normal. He didn't like it.

"We have brought you here, to the future, to do our bidding," Benjamin said. At least he was blunt with it. "We have a pirate problem, and one night as I was researching, I happened across the legend of Davy Jones—sinker of many a ship."

"The future," Davy said, his eyes darting around the large, spacey office room. "How far? How did I get into the future? I don't believe you,"

"I sent my men back in time to collect you. It's all very sci-fi. I wouldn't expect you to understand it," Benjamin said, patronizingly. Davy growled at him.

"Are you sure you're not related to Beckett?" He demanded.

"Hmm? Who's Beckett? Beckett who?" Asked Benjamin. Yes, Knighton had mentioned something about Davy seeming to be under the command of someone called Beckett. He'd have to look up that man.

"Cutler Beckett," Davy said, after a pause. _Thank you for giving me the first name, moron,_ Benjamin thought, but he didn't say it, he just smiled.

"No, no I'm not related to him," He said instead. "Anyway. We have created a ship for you—a better one, one that is much easier to control, with deadlier weapons and a much more able crew then the one you had before." He said with a smile.

"I don't want your ship," Davy hissed, "Take me back to the _Dutchman_. Don't play games with me." For the first time that Davy had seen, an expression crossed Adele's face—a grim smile shallowly curved her lips.

"We'll take you back once we have finished with you," Benjamin said, as if explaining something to a three-year-old, "But you are now here, not as a guest, but as a prisoner... and you have to do as we say. Which is to destroy the pirate ships, the floating villages, keep the Nutriware Ltd vessels safe... I'll explain it more thoroughly later," Benjamin said, waving an arm.

"And what if I don't want to?" Davy asked, softly. His cutlass and pistol had been removed, but he was still dangerous—so he knew that Benjamin would have some sort of protection on him. A gun, perhaps.

"It doesn't matter whether you want it or not," Benjamin said with a frown, "If you don't do it, we'll kill you. See?"

"Ah. Kill me will you?" Davy sounded much more confident now. Scarily so. Benjamin furrowed his brow, his mind whirring. _'This man has no pulse'._ That wasn't normal. _'How is he living then?' 'We're not sure.'_ It didn't work, it was impossible. _'He doesn't have a heart.'_ But how? _'He doesn't have a heart.'_ Something was obviously up with this man.

"I noticed that you didn't have a heart... or, more like, the medics did..." Benjamin said, slowly, "Does that mean that you... can't die?"

"Shoot me," Davy said. Benjamin looked towards Adele, and nodded once. In a brief flicker of the hand, she pulled one of the little laser-tubes out of seemingly nowhere—the folds of her blazer, or maybe tucked into her belt—and shot at Davy's chest. He didn't so much as flinch. He had a smirk on his face. Adele put the weapon down on the edge of Benjamin's desk with a clatter.

"I... see..." Benjamin said, leaning back in his chair with a frown. How was he going to get around this one?

"So I refuse to do what you ask, and now, I would like to go back to my ship," Davy jeered, tentacles on his face writhing as if they had a life of their own, his white teeth bared in a triumphant grin. Benjamin shook his head, curtly.

"I think that in that case, we would like to simply keep you prisoner here," Benjamin said, raising an eyebrow, "Until, of course you feel like obeying orders."

"I take orders from no-one," Davy said in a threatening voice.

"Yes, alright," Benjamin yawned, "Good night." Before Davy could respond, a laser was on Davy, in the small of his back, the small light playing on his blue trench coat, seeming to have to effect, until Davy suddenly staggered back, the room seeming to rock about around him as if he were standing on a boat in the middle of a storm. He blinked, and glared at Benjamin, before everything went black. The killer-beam didn't work, but the tranquillising one seemed to work just fine.

He was caught on a trolley, and transported away.

----------

"Merritt," Benjamin ordered as soon as Jones had been carried away, "I want all of our available researchers on this Cutler Beckett man. He had some way of controlling Jones, if he was working unwillingly for the man—I want to know."

"Yes, sir," Adele said.

----------

When Davy Jones woke up, he was not in a good mood. After being hit by some sort of sleepy-beam-o'-light twice in a row, not only was he annoyed with whoever was responsible, but his head was hurting slightly and his mind seemed to fumble every thought that came into his head. He stood up, and checked out the room. The walls were plain white, the bed on which he had been lying was plain white, with plain white sheets, and the only not-white things were a large wall-sized mirror, and a portrait of someone he didn't know on the wall.

There were a couple of chairs—white—and behind a screen, a bathroom area, with a tub, shower, toilet and sink—none of which he knew how to work. Everything was white and sparkling. Every wall, the floor, the ceiling; and it was now that he noticed the place didn't have a door.

Or so it seemed.

He checked the bed, and noticed that underneath each leg, there was a tray with some water in it. He smelt the salt—seawater, to keep him divided from the land. Clever. He walked to the chairs, and noticed they had the same thing. And at any rate, his new water-boot-things had plenty of seawater in them. He didn't like them though; they were grey and slightly shiny and horrible. Not a barnacle in sight.

Why, it was travesty.

And it was then that the portrait said, "How're you doing?"

----------

"Are you sure this wont scare him a little? His mental state is probable not too healthy at the moment," the head doctor, a man by the name of Adam Kirby, said in a concerned voice. Benjamin smiled airily.

"Just a test, Adam," He said with a small smile. "A fake portrait, to see how he'd react. It's to find out more about his person."

"And for amusement?" Adam said, with a light smile.

"Well. That too." Benjamin replied, turning and tilting his head, watching Davy through the wall-length double-sided mirror.

----------

Davy did not like the portrait. First off, the portrait had a very loud and annoying voice; one that was impossible to simply tune out. Also, it kept on asking questions, which were all really quite hard to answer.

"So you don't know how old you are?" The portrait asked, folding his arms. It was, of course, a television-like screen, electronic—though improved quality meant that you wouldn't be able to tell that they were pixels unless you practically pressed your face against it. And that was something Davy had no intention of doing—and even if he did, he wouldn't know how pixels worked.

"No... it gets hard to keep track of after a while," Davy said with a shrug.

"So I suppose there's no point in asking for your birthday...?"

"No point."

"Right, okay," The portrait said, it's eyes flicking around the room, "Well, Mister Davy Jones, what are you doing here?"

"I've been... kidnapped," Davy grumbled, plonking himself down onto one of the chairs, "This Benjie bloke wants me to help him wipe out piracy again. Which is something I'm already being used to do..."

"Being used? By who? By whom?" The portrait asked, wriggling in delight. The man in the portrait looked to be about late-thirties, perhaps early forties, and had hair tied back in a small queue and dimples in his slightly-chubby cheeks. His eyes sparkled, and he seemed friendly, but had a sort of feel to him, as if... he couldn't be trusted. Sort of shifty.

"None of your business," Davy snapped, "The question is, how do I get out of here?" He began walking around the room, his gait irregular, yet proud; his back straight and his head high.

Which was hard to do when you were doped-up.

"There's no way out," The portrait said, insistently, "Will you stop trying to get out?" Davy sighed and turned back to the portrait with a frown.

"Who are you, and why are you talking to me?" He demanded, "You're a portrait!" The portrait, suddenly, was still. Davy glared at it for a moment, and then walked over to the bathroom to investigate what the shiny white things did.

The bathtub, he sort of recognized, though this one wasn't like any he'd seen before. You filled it with water, and then lay in it. And then you came out and that was a bath. The shower, not so much. He went to the sink, and prodded it. A motion sensor underneath the tap made some warm water come out. He moved his hands forwards, and there was water – he moved it away, and it stopped. He looked around furtively, and then did it again.

It was sort of fun.

In, out, in, out. Ho ho.

"How am I going to get out of here?" He mused to himself.

----------

"He's been behind that screen for a while," Benjamin said, wrinkling his brow. "I don't suppose he knows what a shower is... or a tap... I don't know. When were taps invented?" He smoothed down an eyebrow with a finger.

"It smells like he doesn't knows what a bath is, either," Adele muttered under her breath.

"Well, anyway," Benjamin waved an arm, "We'll leave him to stew for another couple of hours, and then take him to his new ship—the _Stalker_, I believe she's called. He can take a look around his new working environment." Benjamin examined a nail, as Adele cleared her throat.

"He said he wouldn't do it, sir," She said softly.

"Hmm. I'm sure there must be some way to change his mind. He seems to be the type who doesn't want to be parted from the ocean." He smiled slightly, "We'll come to some sort of arrangement."

"Whatever you say, sir..." Adele said, seeming unconvinced.

"Yes..." Benjamin's eyes did not leave the white, mostly empty room that he had left for Jones, "Whatever I say..."


	7. SIX

SIX

Davy stood unhappily on the deck of the giant, metal behemoth, his lips pulled downwards. All around him, men walked and worked, and pulled the most tremendous faces when they saw him. _'Hey, meet your new captain.' 'That's him?!' 'Yeah, what's the problem?' 'That... that... that...' 'Oh, don't worry, he's harmless enough,' 'What, he's friendly?' 'Not as such, no. He just doesn't have any weapons.'_

He didn't like this ship. For a start, there were no sails. How was a ship meant to go without sails? It was also about five times the size of the _Flying Dutchman_, with orderly corridors separated into what seemed to be millions and billions of rooms. The below-decks, had no cells, just massive machinery and oil and smoke. Everywhere else, everything sparkled.

The _Stalker_ was built much unlike the other Nutriware Ltd vessels—those were even bigger then the _Stalker_, bulky and unwieldy, cumbersome and awkward. It was made to carry as much stock as could be stuffed into its storage rooms, below decks, strapped to the top decks and strapped to each other. But this ship was more sleek—still huge, but thin and pointed, with heavy artillery on all sides.

Not exactly legal. But the boating villages were outside of the law. Boaters, they were called, the ones that lived on boats. For obvious reasons.

"The villages are had to trace as they move about," Benjamin had sighed to Davy, "And they send smaller ships in to rob the merchant vessels, and bring back food and so on for their little Boater villages," He finished with a frown.

Davy found it hard to believe that a small ship with a rabble of men inside could even get close to the clumsy, metal _monsters_ that the merchant vessels were. He'd seen one—the size of a tower block, plodding through the water, dwarfing everything else in sight. These ships were _huge_.

"I'm not sailing this ship," He said to Benjamin. Benjamin raised an eyebrow, and Davy continued, "I am _not_ going to use this... thing. It's awkward. Huge. _Ugly_." Davy stared at the metal and white all around him, "There isn't a cannon in sight, just these giant guns, and it's... ugh. I hate it." He narrowed his eyes, looking around himself.

"You'll get used to it," Benjamin said, waving an arm.

"No, I wont," Davy muttered. "Look, Benjie," Benjamin Buck frowned as Davy called him Benjie. He _always_ called him that. "How am I meant to work this thing, eh? Look at it." There wasn't even a wheel—just a mass of controls. "I don't know what I'm doing, only these men do. What's the point in having me here?"

"We did try shooting the Boaters down before you came, Jones," Benjamin said smoothly, "It didn't work so well. I thought that with you steady at the helm, it would work better. You seem to be... experienced in this area."

"If you want my help," Davy growled, "You're going to have to build me another ship." There was a pause.

"Fine," Benjamin said, in a slightly strained voice.

"Sir?" Asked Adele, confused that he was submitting to Davy's request. Benjamin looked up to her with fire in his eyes.

"We're going to have to build a ship, olden-day style. Get some blueprints, some plans, get the materials, ship-builders who can help us." She could practically see the money adding up in his mind, "And jump to it." Adele nodded, and then walked off towards the dock—she wanted to get off of the ship. She wasn't happy on boats—though she loathed to admit it, she'd never been the most sea-steady of women.

Benjamin turned towards Davy.

"And once we have a ship that's more to your taste, will you get to the task?" He asked. Davy smirked.

"Probably not," he replied.

"Fantastic," Benjamin muttered, before turning, and also striding off of the ship. He clicked his fingers irritably, and Davy loped behind him, feeling slightly triumphant, in a world where everything he knew had become so... immaterial.

----------

"We've built you the second ship," Benjamin said impatiently, waving his arms around, "What more could you want? We had to send people back in time to get shipbuilders _Stalker II_!" He ground his teeth. Yes, they'd had to resort to kidnapping a shipbuilder, getting help creating a ship, and then clearing his mind and putting him back. He'd seemed happy enough, last time they'd seen him, toddling off home.

They had sufficient technology now to—well, not erase the memory. Just sort of let them... forget the last few days or so. Blank it out. Its there, locked away in a box somewhere in your mind... but it's impossible to get it out. Unless your memory gets triggered by something _very_ strong.

"I don't like the crew," Davy said earnestly, "A bunch of whiners, all dressed in white." A muscle in Benjamin's cheek jumped, a sign of annoyance, but he smoothed over it.

"Well, I am not going to send the hit team back in time to kidnap your _entire crew_," He said, "Sorry."

"Huh. Well at least let me have my first mate," Davy said, folding his arms.

----------

And so, the team ended up going back in time, again. They went back to the same time they had kidnapped Davy... landing further up the beach.

"Did you see yourselves?" A scientist-type had asked them before they left for the kidnapping of Maccus.

"No, we didn't see our future-past selves," Knighton replied, impatiently. He was getting used to the time travelling now, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

"Then stay _hidden_ from your past-past selves," The scientist sighed, rifling through his clipboard, "Mess up what happened before and things could end up... uh... messy." Knighton did not like the sound of that. He nodded, and stepped into the machine.

The description of the one they had to capture did not inspire hope into their hearts. _Half-man, half-hammerhead shark, razor-sharp teeth and crab legs on his arm. Tall, bulky, loud and grating voice. Can't miss him, really._

Hmmph.

They clambered out of the time machine, further up the beach, and put the tarpaulin over the pod—they'd done this enough times now. Further up the beach, they were pretty certain that their past-past selves were doing the same thing.

"Why did we come back at the same time as before to kidnap this Macky guy?" Mosquito said, fiddling with a machine gun strapped to one of her hips. She's a rather... special person, and nothing made a shiny-bright smile come to her face more then having a stash of weapons to her disposal... apart from maybe using them.

"So that it's easier to keep track of when we're supposed to put them back," Blue said, glancing up the beach furtively—and thinking he saw a few dark shapes slipping off towards the dock. One of them paused for a minute, and looked right at him—Blue stood stock still—and then the figure turned and carried on walking away, up towards the docks.

"That was me," Fly said, sounding bewildered. "That's past-past me."

"This is getting complicated," Spider muttered, narrowing his eyes, "Let's go get this shark-man, and get out of here as soon as we can." There were various sounds of agreement.

----------

They weren't sure what to do now.

They had Maccus in their sights—_not_ someone they were looking forwards to having to take down, by the way—but he was with a whole bunch of other monstrous crewmates. There was no way they were going to get him out of there without being seen by the rest of the entire crew, which was not a good way to go.

"We have to do it soon, we have about a four-minute slot while the past-past us are in there getting Davy," Blue said, informatively.

"What's our plan of action?" Asked Fly, looking sidelong at Knighton.

"I guess... we try and stealthily go and..." He rubbed his temple, looking tired for a moment, "Let's knock him out with the laser, and then drag him off towards..." He didn't finish, as there came a shout from inside the captain's cabin.

"First mate!"

"We can't let our man go in there," Flea exclaimed.

"We're going to have to go for the 'run-in-knocking-everything-out' technique," Knighton sighed, and the nodded at the others. They all pressed the button on their shoulders, making the electronic reflecting material on their jumpsuits stop working; and then they jumped forwards.

Their lasers looked like the little laser pointers that, in our times, may have been carried by kids. The lasers that shot out didn't go 'ptchoom!' and make whoever it came into contact with explode; it just let a red dot play on wherever it was pointed. The best place to point it was at the forehead for the tranquillising ones; so as they ran, they pointed them at every forehead—or forehead like part, anyway—and soon bodies were hitting the deck.

There was a roar from some of the crewmembers, and they began drawing swords; and suddenly, the monsters seemed to leap out of every shadow. They flicked their lasers from one to the next, making them collapse, but everywhere they looked more slimy, seaweed-covered beasts were crawling towards them.

After a brief brawl, the team all stopped, exhausted. They knew that their past-past selves were probably rowing away back to mainland now. They picked their way over to the fallen Maccus, and Flea and Spider—the bulky, strong ones of the group—picked him up, one arm over each shoulder. They all looked around at each other for a minute.

"I'm hit," Mosquito said, in a tone that almost mirrored one of someone admitting to something slightly embarrassing.

"Same," Blue replied.

"One of them came at me with a ball-and-chain," Fly said, warily.

"Tell me about it! Did you see the one with the multiple whip?" Mosquito shook her head, "It would've been easy if they hadn't been, you know, immortal."

"Yeah," Blue said with a small laugh.

"Alright, stop with the idle chit-chat, you three," Knighton said, seeming to snap out of his trance. He always went into a different personality when he was fighting—nothing else mattered, and he felt determined beyond _anything_ to finish his job.

"Yes, sir," Came three voices.

"There's another longboat over there," Flea grunted. They made their way to the longboat, sprawling the unconscious body of Maccus on the wooden boat, before clambering in themselves.

"Well, that could've gone better," Blue said, looking down at a sharp gash in his side. He didn't show the pain—they were trained for this sort of thing, after all—but it was quite a deep cut. The rest of them nodded, knowing that they'd all need some help from the Nutriware Ltd medics when they got back.

* * *

**NB:** And so, our favourite first-mate enters the game. :) 


	8. SEVEN

SEVEN

"Anything on this Cutler Beckett, Adele?" Benjamin asked, looking up from the screen of his computer. The screen was large, and wafer-thin.

"A little, sir," She replied, "We're close to finding out where this man may have lived. Then we'll send the team back to get him, I assume?" Benjamin nodded, finishing some typing and then looking up to Adele.

"How is Jones doing in his new station? And his associate... Maccus?" He leaned back in his seat, stretching.

"He doesn't like it, sir," Adele said earnestly, "He complains that there are lots of things missing from his ship." Benjamin raised an eyebrow.

"Like what?" He asked.

"Well, an able crew to start with, sir," Adele thought back to her conversation with Jones. "He says his ship wont go underwater... and that it's not messy enough... and that there's no kraken."

"Doesn't go underwater?" Benjamin frowned, "But that's the point of a ship! And what on earth is a kraken?"

"Apparently some sort of mythical beast, sir," Adele remembered—she'd asked Jones the very same thing. The legend of the kraken had been lost in time, it seems. "A giant squid-like creature that did Jones' bidding, and helped him defeat some ships."

"I see..." Benjamin sighed. "Well, we can hardly go back and grab it, can we?" He steeped his fingers, "What did you tell Jones, Merritt?"

"To stop his whining and get on with it," Adele said.

"And did he?"

"He went back to the helm, if that's what you mean." Benjamin looked at her, thoughtfully, for a moment.

"Hmm... he did what you said?" He asked. Adele shrugged, no expression on her face. "I think I am getting an idea of a way to make Jones do as we command..." His grey eyes slid towards Adele, and she knew that an order was coming simply from the way he looked, "Go down to the slums and find a prostitute, will you, Adele?" He asked. "Just some random whore—one that's fine to kill afterwards."

"Yes sir," She said, before turning and leaving, and pulling a slight face once her back was to him. What was he _thinking_?

Benjamin smiled to himself. Love was a very strong thing. Just find some slapper to 'seduce' Jones, and then he'd want to stay behind. And do as he asked. If Jones was to fall in _love_, then he'd want to stay forever, wouldn't he?

Of course, in the future-days, love was something far less valued, far faker, and it was really nonexistent—so it was easy for someone to say 'I love you' to someone else, and have them believe it. He didn't really think back in the day to when love may have meant something deeper. Time to see how Davy reacted to the honey trap.

How hard could it be?

----------

Davy folded his arms, his eyes narrowed, staring out across his ship. It was like an old-fashioned ship, yes—but it was made of some sort of metal, which he disliked. Its colour was shiny metal and shiny white; another thing he disliked. The sails billowed proudly. The crew walked around in an orderly manner, though most of them had no idea what they were doing. They were used to manning ships that needed nothing more then some button-pressing.

"I don't like this place," He snarled.

"Neither do I, captain," Maccus replied from somewhere behind. He was looking around furtively. He wasn't, as such, too sure what was happening—but his captain seemed to know, so he decided to stick with him.

"These men couldn't tie a knot to save their lives," Davy continued, "And we're not even allowed a whip to punish them with. What's the point in that?"

"I don't know, sir," Maccus sighed.

"This ship has a... some sort of mechanic thing that helps to find where other ships are," Davy carried on.

"A tracking device, sir?" Maccus asked, uncertainly.

"Yes. That. It feels like cheating." Davy narrowed his eyes, "There's no skill in picking off a few small ships that you already know the position off and then blasting them to death with these... missiles," He frowned.

It was true that since Davy had arrived, a lot more of these pirate ships had been blown to bits. He was generally wiser in this sort of thing, knew where to attack from, how to get closest to them, and so on. But he wanted his crew to pick up sword, jump on board and fight—not just hold their finger down on a trigger and let the gun do the work for them.

He was only on board the ship because he wanted to be at sea rather then on land—he wasn't really following any orders in particular. He'd just wander out to sea in his ship and do nothing, a lot of the time. It made Benjamin mad, but he had nothing to barter with. Davy could do as he pleased.

Davy came and went as much as he liked—which infuriated Benjamin, because, well... _nobody was meant to know about Davy_. If there were sightings of a half-octopus monster-man running around, the world would go crazy; conspiracy theories, sea-beasts, extraterrestrial beings... Davy was meant to be seen only by pirates, ones that didn't survive long enough to tell anyone. So, one day, Benjamin had Davy tranquillised again—much to Davy's distaste—and had him dragged back to land, and into a cell, I mean room, in the Nutriware Ltd building.

Davy just did too much damage running around doing as he pleased. He had to be locked up, and he had to be kept in his place.

----------

Adele stalked through the grimy slums—she was on the ground now. She often had to come to the very bottom of the chain for various dirty dealings she had to do for her master. It was dank, and dark; hardly any light got down here, because of the towering skyscrapers, and the smog that hovered at around tenth-floor level. The smog—a large spread of smoky fog in the air—was always there, and changed colours depending on what chemicals were in the air.

Right now the smog was billowing a light pink colour, which Adele knew wasn't too dangerous—nothing to worry about. The sparse amount of light that filtered through that showed a ground made completely of concrete, with occasional bits of mud. Piles of trash littered the streets, things that had been dropped from the buildings.

There was not a single building in this city that was less then, pssht, eighty stories or so. And those were rather short. The buildings shot up into the sky—into the clouds. The higher up you went, the more expensive the homes were. The only gardens either hung from balconies, or decorated the top of the buildings... there were some indoor gardens too.

The bottom floors of the skyscrapers were never visited by the people who lived in it—they were boiler rooms, large empty spaces, nothing now but squats for the poor people who ended up living here, on the ground. The place was swarming with various gangs that scrapped whenever they met, alcohol and drugs obtained from god-knows-where poured freely, and prostitutes paraded around wearing next to nothing.

Adele slipped into a bar and nightclub that was situated on the bottom floor of a skyscraper that contained thousands of homes, perhaps a few schools, an indoor playground, a hospital—each of the skyscrapers was like a town in itself. The bottom floors were the dark, dark alleyways that nobody dared enter; no respectable life lived anywhere below the sixth or seventh floor.

"Want somefin' ta drink, darlin'?" Asked a man with so many muscle implants that he looked positively grotesque. Adele shot him a filthy look, and carried on walking through the club.

"You," She said, spotting a prostitute sitting alone on a table, smoking a cigarette. They were illegal now—but on the lower floors, no rules applied. Police didn't even bother coming down here; the people in the run-down ground floor area weren't a part of society. They were just outcasted ruffians who didn't do anything but drink booze and breed.

"What can I do for you, missus?" The woman leaned forwards. She was wearing fishnet tights and a skirt that came to the middle of her thighs—which was quite modest for a prostitute, these days—and a corset-like top, laced up at the back. She had peroxide blonde hair, looking slightly rumpled. She'd do. Nobody would miss her—she was just another whore on the dangerous streets of the ground floor.

"This is a special case. Someone needs seducing. As much money as you like," Adele said, tilting her head in a way that could only be described as 'robotic'. A lot of things about Adele were like that. "All you have to do is get this man, and you get all the money you want and more." The woman sat up straight, looking like she couldn't believe it.

"So... one man... and I get all the money I want?" She asked. "What's the catch?"

"Oh, nothing... this man's just..." Adele gave a slight smile, "He's a touch odd-looking, that's all." The woman frowned, suspicious.

"How can I trust you?" She asked.

"Have some payment now..." Adele reached into a pocket, "Let's call it a deposit." She pulled out a wad of notes, and pushed it into the prostitute's hands.

She knew she'd get it back later.

"The name's Pia," The woman smiled, "And you have yourself a seductress."

* * *

**NB:** That poor girl. _We_ all know the hole in Benjamin's plan, don't we? Honey trap, my foot--Davy isn't going to be too pleased about this...


	9. EIGHT

EIGHT

Davy woke up—and was not in a good mood. Not _again_. That was the third time. Hadn't they ever heard of just _asking_ him to come? He probably wouldn't, but still—it was polite. Same white room. Same white walls. No visible door; but he knew now that one sort of slid open in the room, when Benjamin commanded it. Until then, he was a prisoner, again.

Suddenly, the door _did_ slide open; and in stepped a scantily clad woman, her lips pulled into a pucker, her stance one of complete confidence. Davy frowned, not really liking the look of her.

"What?" He asked, rudely.

----------

Odd-looking. _Odd-looking?!_ If this was odd-looking, then she hated to think what someone Adele thought was really strange would look like. She swallowed it though; and after all, she had had to service a lot of disgusting men in her time. Fat, swarthy, sweaty businessmen; ugly, lanky, spotty teens with something to prove. The thing is, this man didn't seem to _want_ her presence.

Now, Pia prided herself on her ability to catch herself a paying customer almost every night—it wasn't much to be proud of, but on the ground floor, you took what you could. She needed _something_ to be proud of. She was very professional and didn't let any expression cross her face.

The thing was, she was—after living a life on the ground floor slums, with no need for anything such as love—not very clued up about 'love' and suchlike. In fact, when told she had to make him fall in love with her, she just assumed it meant, well, her _body_. She was a prostitute, after all; that was what she did. It hadn't been at all part of the plan to simply release her into Davy's room, but she was eager to get her services over with, so she decided to simply pop in, do what she had to do, grab the money and rent herself a nice flat above the smog, where she could lead a real life.

She thought it was just another quick job, just further up the chain. Easy peasy.

"Hey there," She said with a small pout. Davy glared at her.

"Who are you?" He demanded.

"My name's Pia," She said in her sultry work-voice; though she was becoming rather disconcerted by the coldness in his voice. Tough crowd.

"Did Buck send you?" He asked with a frown.

"No-one sent me," She said, with a small smile, taking a step forwards. Davy shot her a withering look, which seemed to say, _drop dead!_ It was slightly off-putting. The hostility was coming off of him in waves. He didn't seem at all intrigued, or even interested in her appearance.

"Then why did you come?" He asked, impatiently.

"I came for you," Pia said, walking up to him and leaning forwards so that her breath tickled his face, standing unbearably close, her tackily-done makeup not disguising the flaws on her face from this close up... and then, suddenly, all she could see was stars, as Davy grabbed her shoulder with his crab claw and threw her across the room. She bounced off of the wall with a loud thump, and a short squeal.

"_What_ is wrong with you?!" Davy exclaimed, his hand flying to where his cutlass used to be, and finding nothing but air. He looked down to where his cutlass should have been, and then up again, scowling. For about the millionth time. He advanced on her, a snarl on his face.

"B-b-but..." Pia shivered and looked away from him, the towering man-beast that was striding towards her with a deadly look in his eye.

The door burst open.

----------

Benjamin had just gone down to check on Jones, and as he arrived in the room adjacent—so that he could see in via the wall-length double-sided mirror—he noticed a girl in there. He raised an eyebrow.

"Who is that, Adele?" He asked her, patience forced into his voice.

"That's Pia, the prostitute," Adele said, sounding bewildered, "But she's not meant to be in there. I told her to-,"

"Well you told her wrong," Benjamin said sharply, "We'd better get in there before..." He trailed off as Pia was sent flying across the room. "Too late. Come on, Adele," he said briskly, and walked quickly towards the door, throwing it open. "Jones," He said sharply, "What are you doing?"

"What're _you_ doing?" Davy demanded, "Sending some whore in here!" The girl on the floor looked downwards, biting a lip, looking outraged and slightly embarrassed.

"I didn't _send her in here_," Benjamin snapped, looking down at Pia. His eyes slid to Adele, whose face revealed no emotion. After a moment more of silence, he said to Adele, "Shoot her." Before Pia could even speak, Adele raised laser and let the red dot play on Pia's chest—the laser was soundless, and left no mark; simply stopped her heart. In most science-fiction, I suppose it could be called a death ray.

The body of Pia fell to the ground soundlessly, her eyes open, her body lifeless. Adele slipped the laser back into her pocket, and turned towards Davy, folding her arms. Benjamin seemed to think for a moment.

"Let's go, Miss Merritt," He said, before turning and striding out of the room. Adele took the time to frown at Davy, before following him to his office.

----------

"I suppose that using some silly slag from ground floor was a bad idea," Benjamin said, walking up to the wall-length window behind his desk and gazing out across the metropolis of skyscrapers, and a blue sky above them—with a dark, greyish green smog only just visible, miles and miles below him. He had no need for the information, but he had come to know that dark green caused rashes.

"Yes... life on the ground floor was dismal, as usual. No intelligent life to speak of." Adele said, with a small, superior frown.

"Hmm—I guess I had come to overestimate them. Never mind," He spun around, and there was a grim determination in his eyes, "I did not steal those blueprints and go to all of the trouble of time-travel for nothing! There _must_ be some way to control Jones. This Beckett guy seemed to manage it... And the honey trap still seems to be the best idea..."

"Yes, sir," Adele said absently, not really listening to his mutterings. Suddenly, she felt his eyes on her. She looked up as he stared at her. "What?"

"He'll get suspicious if we send in another whore, a smarter one," Benjamin said, slowly, "I think we'd have to use someone... that he's already met." He grinned widely, as Adele looked blank for a moment, and then her mouth dropped open; hmm, actual emotion!

"What?" She asked him again.

"Well, Adele, looks like you've got yourself a mission of the unconventional sort," Benjamin said. Adele looked like she truly wanted to protest—but she didn't, just looked at him, her expression vaguely pleading. Benjamin was beginning to realize that the honey trap idea may not work so well; but the lengths Adele would go to to please him never ceased to amaze and amuse him. This should be fun.

"...Jones?" Was all she managed to say.

"You'll find a way," Benjamin smirked, and Adele could only stare at him, before there was a knock on the door. "Come in," He said smoothly, as Adele covered up her devastated expression and looked down at the floor.

"Sir," A man walked in, "We've dug up sufficient information on our subject—we know where he lives. Should we ready the machine?"

"Yes," Benjamin said, a wolfish grin spreading over his face, "Do."

----------

Adele wasn't incredibly sure what Benjamin was asking of her.

Well, she was.

A mission of the more unconventional sort. _Funny_. She had already made it pretty clear to Jones that she hated his guts. Love-hate? Hah, who fell for that garbage? Love-hate, in Adele's opinion, didn't exist—but she was the sort of person who liked everything straightforward. If you act like you hate someone, then hate them. Feeling one way and acting another was like cheating.

Obviously, Adele was a person who was unfamiliar with irony.

----------

"Are you sure this is a good idea, sir?" Adele asked him, sounding a touch wary. She wasn't just talking about the kidnapping of Cutler Beckett either.

"Ah, dear Adele, I know you have doubts about my plans," Benjamin said, patting her on the cheek—something which she hated, by the way, "But just leave the thinking to me. If I didn't think it was a good idea, I wouldn't do it." He turned towards the team, now reassembled again near the pod room, seeming weary.

"We're ready to go, sir," Knighton said, as scientists rushed around, making sure everything to do with the machine was in working order. "We had a couple of injuries last trip, but they've been seen to,"

"Excellent," Benjamin said with a smile, "Now, with this Beckett fellow, please be... _civil_. There is no need to knock him out and drag him here like with Jones. We will be working together, so remain polite... well, as polite as you can," He said with a small smile. Knighton knew what that smile meant... _if he refuses, knock him out anyway._ "And be careful. Apparently, he was quite a tricky chap—though, of course, nobody can outsmart me," He grinned and spun around as a scientist tapped him on the shoulder.

"This one will arrive outside of his manor in a place called Port Royale—the fashionable Gilt District, if I am not mistaken," the scientist said, "At the same time as the other three excursions."

"Do we have to keep returning to the same time?" Knighton asked irritably, "That means that at some point in time, there will be four different sets of us running about! It can only mean trouble..." He narrowed his eyes.

"It's easier that way," The scientist assured him. Knighton simply grunted.

"Toodles, then," Benjamin leaned back against a wall, and waved jauntily at Knighton and his team. Knighton stepped into the capsule room, along with the rest of the squad, running a hand through his brown-blonde hair. Benjamin watched him go with that mint fresh, bright white, and ever-so-slightly fake smile of his.

The team walked into the capsule, as they had already done three times before. The scientists checked the pod all over; making sure everything was sealed shut, before leaving the room—making sure it was airtight and that the doors were sealed. Benjamin watched with bright eyes as the scientists began busily moving about—and Adele with a slight disinterest.

In the room, the pod suddenly flickered once—and then, it was gone.

* * *

**NB:** Will a new character be joining the cast? Hmm! This is turning into a bit of a villain-fest, isn't it? Thanks for the reviews, and to those who favourited and alerted too; I guess there just aren't words to say, eh:P Next chapter--the thoughts of Davy's not-incredibly-bright first mate, and the future and past end up sort of... screwing up a tad. Don't know what I mean?

You'll know soon...


	10. NINE

NINE

Maccus was confused.

Now, to be completely honest, this wasn't something that was terribly uncommon with our dear first mate of the _Dutchman_ crew.

He wasn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.

A few clowns short of a circus.

No, not the brightest bulb in the factory.

And so on.

So, one minute everything had been... normal. As far as he could tell.

And then there had been the—those weird people. He didn't understand them, he didn't like them, and most of all, they were magic. Everything went black at some point. And then he'd woken up to people examining him, though they'd all cowered away as he sat up.

And found himself handcuffed and in restraints.

Apparently, Davy had warned them of his not-exactly-sweet temper.

You see, you don't exactly have to be clever to bag a spot as first mate on board one of the most infamous vessels in the world. Armed with big ambitions, heavy fists and a loud voice, you could accomplish almost everything, in those days. And it also helped that he was an incredibly tall and well-built sort of person.

Still, his captain had tried—uhm, _tried_—to explain it all to him. It was sort of weird, and Maccus wasn't sure he understood. He hadn't known the future would have been like this... to be honest, he'd never really... _thought_ about it.

He supposed that things would be different. Just not so... white.

And shiny.

Yes, so Maccus was having doubts, and he was a bit annoyed too, but most of all...

Maccus was confused.

----------

"He's not here," Knighton finally sighed.

"I _knew_ it," Mosquito said, pursing her lips, "He's not in bed, he's not anywhere in the house." She folded her arms and sighed.

"What do we do now?" Spider asked, looking around.

"I suppose we—shh!" They hushed, as the door opened, and a man walked in. They all looked to each other, and back to the man, who had stopped walking and was staring at them.

"Are you Cutler Beckett?" Knighton asked.

"No... I'm the butler..." The man said, his eyes darting around at the six oddly-dressed people.

"Do you know where Cutler Beckett is?" Knighton raised an eyebrow, and pointed a revolver at the man—or it looked like a revolver. It was, of course, the same as the lasers, but they had decided that they needed something that could be seen as threatening to the people of this time. They'd had enough of the 'what _is_ that?' and so on.

"I-I-I..." The man swallowed, "He's on board the _Endeavour_... out to sea on business..." He blinked, his eyes fixated on the revolver, "Wh-who are you?"

"It doesn't matter," Knighton smiled, and after quickly changing the setting of the laser on the beck of the gun, he pulled the trigger. Nothing shot from the muzzle, there was no 'ptchoom!' noise. The laser beam was simply a small, orange dot hovering on the man's temple; within seconds, he was passed out on the floor. He would wake up in approximately five hours with no memory whatsoever for the past couple of days—he couldn't be allowed to remember this event, and the force of the beam knocked out was sure to obliterate his memory, and perhaps scramble a few brain cells too. Oh well.

"I suppose it's back to the future then," Blue said in an amused voice, "I've always wanted to say that."

"Let's go," Flea grunted, and they turned and strode from the lavishly decorated manor, trying not to be secretly impressed by the colour, the richness and the glitziness of the mansion that they had intruded on.

----------

"About the _Endeavour_... hmm..." a scientist tapped his chin, "We're going to try and get this pod to land on the boat—but co-ordinates could be a tiny bit messed-up. It may land in the sea; but don't worry, it's waterproof," he added hastily, as Knighton folded his arms, "If it lands in the sea, simply come back."

"Right," Knighton said, "Better."

"We're not sure _where_ on the _Endeavour_ the pod will land, so, uh, try to make the best of it, will you?" The scientist asked.

"Yeah, we'll handle it," Knighton said, turning towards the rest of his team, "Are we all ready?" There were various, unenthusiastic mutters of 'yes, sir'. "Good," Knighton said, walking towards the pod, swinging the hatch open and stepping in.

"This might not end well," Blue muttered as he sat himself down.

----------

As they all clambered out of the pod, Fly suddenly stood stock still, staring at something.

"Look at this..." She said, softly. Their pod had landed somewhere on the back deck—on top of a coil or ropes and an unfortunate barrel. And on one side of them was... the pod. Their time travelling pod; again. There were... _two_ of them. 

"But we've never been here before," Knighton said with a frown. Then he noticed a small sticky note stuck on the side of the pod. He stepped forwards and peeled it off, his eyes scanning over the writing. _Knighton—heart,_ and then a long line of seemingly unconnected numbers. _Keep for future reference_. How odd.

"I think that's our ship... from the future," Blue said, "And that note is from us from the future," He took a look at it, "Those numbers must mean something."

"Yes..." Knighton shook himself off, "Well, let's go find this Beckett. Our future selves are somewhere on this ship too... good, eh?" He grinned and began walking through the _Endeavour_—it was eleven at night, again, and the ship was at anchor; everyone was asleep.

"This means," Mosquito said slowly as they walked down a small corridor, "That at this very moment in time, there are at least six sets of us out there, kidnapping and so on." They all mulled this over for a while.

"Wow," Spider said finally, "That's quite..." He trailed off, as a group of people walked out of a room just ahead of them.

It was them. It was themselves.

Themselves from the future.

----------

"Alright, I remember this," The future-Knighton said. He was carrying a small chest under one arm. "You're the past us. I can remember this happening."

"This has got to be a first," Mosquito said, "I'm meeting my future self!" The future-mosquito waved, and the past-mosquito waved back. The rest of them just stared at each other—uh, themselves—warily.

"Let's get going then," Said the only figure they didn't recognize. He was dressed in fine seventeenth-century garb, with a long jacket covered in sequins, a ruffled shirt, with breeches, a cravat, and buckled shoes. He had on a wig, that fell back into a white ponytail, held in black by a black, velvet bow. He was rather small in stature, and wearing a waistcoat, showing off a slim figure—the height of fashion, in those days.

"Who are you?" Asked Flea, frowning.

"Me?" The man arched an eyebrow, "I'm Cutler Beckett."

"We've got to kidnap Cutler Beckett, so... you're our man, right?" Spider asked, seeming to put two and two together at last. But he was wrong.

"No, _this_ is future-Beckett... we've already kidnapped him. And now we're back. The Beckett _you_ want it just down there," Future-Spider hefted a sack on his back and nodded down the corridor, to a door that was slightly ajar.

"Why did you come back?" Blue asked.

"To get this," Future-Knighton lifted up a small, ornately decorated, wooden chest; from inside, there was a dull thumping.

"And the sack?" Asked Blue.

"Oh, that's just _his majesty_ deciding that while we were here, we might as well bring a nice array of clothes back," Future-Spider scowled at future-Beckett.

"You'll have to do the same thing too. Remember to pass the sticky-note on," Future-Knighton gave a wink.

"But what does it mean?" Our Knighton interjected.

"Oh, you'll find out," Future-Knighton smiled, "We have to go now." He jerked his head, and they all began to walk off, "Oh, and be careful of that Beckett. He's annoying."

"I'm not annoying, I'm just always right," Beckett muttered.

"Point proven," Future-Knighton said, and then they were all gone. Future-Knighton seemed... a lot nicer then the past-Knighton. The team all looked at each other.

"Well, that was... a unique experience," Fly said at last.

"Huh... let's go get this Beckett guy," Knighton muttered, slipping the sticky-note into a pocket, "And at some point in the future, we are going to meet our past selves. And _that_ is going to happen." Knighton was not looking forwards to experiencing that—and I am not looking forwards to writing it.

-----------

Knighton pushed the door open gently, peering through the half-darkness. Inside, there was a wardrobe, a desk, a couple of cabinets, and a huge, four-poster bed, with a curtain surrounding it; even though they were on a boat! Fly pursed her lips—there was a time, long ago, when she would have killed for a bed like that; a real-life little princess' bed. They walked quietly into the room, and Knighton glanced around, before walking up to the bed.

Cautiously, he pulled the curtain around the bed aside... and there was a loud, resounding click as a pistol was made ready to fire. Knighton stared at the black, soulless hole in front of him—the barrel of a gun.

"Luckily, I'm a light sleeper," Came a preening voice; one which he had heard just moments before. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" Cutler Beckett demanded. A question they were asked often.

* * *

**NB:** Thanks much for reviews! All are loved. Things are going get interesting... as for the future-past moment, I've written the scene in which Knighton and the crew go and meet their _past_ selves... and it's not pretty. Anyway, if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask; for some reason, I feel like I've missed a lot of stuff. But you do find out more about the future-world later on in the story.

And I don't know why I made Maccus so incredibly dim. It's fun. :)


	11. TEN

TEN

"Alright, Cutler," Knighton said slowly, "There's no need to shoot."

"Don't call me Cutler. Only people who deserve it address me by my first name," He said with a scowl. Knighton sighed inwardly—a mistake already. He should probably have looked up more on seventeenth-century etiquette.

"Okay... _Beckett_..."

"It's _Lord_ Beckett." Augh! What an insanely irritating man!

"_Lord Beckett_," Knighton realized that Beckett didn't know about the other five agents in the room. He made a gesture behind his back, hoping one of them would get the drift.

Apparently, one of them did—Mosquito suddenly darted through the other side of the curtains, knocking both herself and Beckett onto the ground in an undignified heap... not _quite_ what he'd been planning. And not exactly _polite_, either—but his future self was right, Beckett _was_ annoying... so he decided to let it slide.

"What do you want?" Beckett demanded, looking up from the wooden floor, as the revolver spun away across the floor. At least he was acknowledging his defeat.

"You have to come with us, Beckett," Knighton snapped, nodding at Mosquito, who scampered off and picked the revolver up off of the floor. She examined it with a big smile on her face—a real life seventeenth century weapon!

"Come with you?" Beckett wrinkled his nose, "What does that mean?"

"Follow," Knighton snapped, waving his laser-fake-revolver around. Beckett stood up, and brushed himself down. He looked rather different from the suited-up, wig-baring man they'd seen before; in a nightshirt, with blonde-brown hair tied in a queue, and an ungentlemanly scowl on his face. He smoothed it off, though.

"Well, at least let me change first," he said. Knighton frowned, but remembered Benjamin's words about being polite—and it was a reasonable request after all. "Sure," He said, wondering what harm it could do.

A three-hour wait followed.

----------

"Are you _ready_ now, your majesty?" Knighton demanded, as Beckett finally walked out from behind a screen, all dressed-up.

"Well, it took a while longer, seeing as you wouldn't let me call in my servants," Beckett said airily, fiddling with a sleeve, "Honestly, it wouldn't have caused _that_ much trouble. And servants are easy enough to call, anyway... oh, Mister Mercer?"

A man stepped out from a side-door, his arms folded, his eyes narrowed. He had brown hair, slicked back and tied into a queue, and was fully-dressed in dark brown clothing, with leather gloves to finish. His dark brown eyes travelled to each of the men, his revolver loose in his hands. They were outnumbered three to one... there was no point in trying to shoot them all.

"Evening, gentlemen," he said instead, with a smile.

"Beckett," Knighton hissed, spinning to face the grinning lord, "I told you to not call out any of your little servants!" His pistol shot up to point at Beckett—in reaction, Mercer pointed his pistol to Knighton, and ended up with five pistols aimed at him. The sudden chain-reaction was almost comical, it was so quick.

"But he's not just any little servant," Beckett drawled, "He's my personal guard, my aide, he's like my right-hand man. I can't go anywhere without him... even when I'm being kidnapped."

"This is not a kidnapping..." Knighton said, carefully, "It's part of a business deal. My master needs your help—we're from the future. Far, far into the future; we've invented a machine that can travel through time. Pirates have risen again... and we need your expertise in this matter."

"Pirates have risen _again_, hmm? Well, at least they were driven to extinction once... the future, you say?" Beckett looked around at them all, as if wondering whether to believe them or not, "Am I famous?" He demanded.

"Uh, yes," Knighton said, thinking that he might as well humour the man.

"Huh... well, I thought it would happen," Beckett said, looking pleased with himself, "All of my great work hasn't gone to waste then... I've gone down in history! Or I will..." And then he gave the small, satisfied smile of a young child who felt life couldn't be more perfect. Knighton felt a little sorry for him. He'd been so _un_famous that it had taken weeks of research to dig up the slightest thing about him.

"Come with us, then," Knighton said, nodding towards the door.

"Mercer will be accompanying us, of course," Beckett said.

"Of course," Knighton said, through gritted teeth. He turned and began walking through the boat, with Beckett and Mercer behind him, and the other five following behind, keeping a close eye on them. Mercer seemed wary, but Beckett looked delighted.

Eventually they got to the pod, and Beckett stared at it, craning his neck to see every inch of it. Knighton, again, had to wait while Beckett insisted on examining it all around.

"Will you get in?" He finally snapped. Beckett raised an eyebrow, not seeming put out in the least.

"I suppose so," He said, stepping through the hatch. Mercer's weaponry had been stolen—Mosquito had found a rather large amount of guns and daggers secreted about his person. Mercer looked scandalized at having to be searched... and by a woman, too! Now he sat sullenly, not liking this at all. As if he believed them.

"Just sit there and shut up," Knighton said warningly, pointing them to a small cell-like room at the back of the pod. The pod itself was very small—and the cell had only just enough room for Beckett and Mercer to both sit comfortably in.

Knighton resisted the urge to close and lock the hatch dividing them. They all sat down, and Fly and Blue fiddled with the controls, and after the usual slight feeling of static, they were back. Beckett frowned and leaned forwards, seeming interested in the buttons and the screen and... well, everything, really.

"What do we do now?" He said, "How do we get to the future?"

"We're there already, you ass," Knighton muttered, throwing the hatch open and clambering up. The rest of the team followed suit—and with a shrug, Beckett and Mercer stepped out too... and received quite a shock.

The boat was gone. Just a second ago, they'd climbed through the very same hatch from the boat—but now, they came out, and there was not a boat in sight. They were in a weird room, and lots of people in white coats were bustling around, and the team was walking out of a door. With a swish of coattails, Beckett followed suit, frowning at everyone around him as if they were below his notice.

"Lord Beckett?" Asked a man, Adam Kirby, the head doctor, if you don't remember, "Would you mind an examination?"

"Yes, I would mind," Beckett snapped, "Now tell me where to go and how to find this chap who wants me to help him get rid of pirates." Adam shot a reproachful look to Knighton, who simply shrugged.

"Alright, then," Adam said, turning to heel, "Follow me."

----------

Beckett then had his first experience with an elevator. When directed to it, he paused by the door, looking around inside.

"What's this for?" He asked. To his surprise, Adam chuckled.

"I'd forgotten you were from the past," He said in an amused voice, "Well, Lord Beckett, this is an elevator. It's a machine that goes upwards—so you don't have to climb loads of stairs."

"Hmmph," Beckett said, but stepped inside anyway. Mercer, soundless as ever, walked in behind. Adam stepped in, and pressed a few buttons on the side. The elevator rose quickly—but thanks to the gyroscopes, there was no feeling of any movement at all. Beckett raised an eyebrow, but did not comment on their apparently reasonless standing in a small room. Until the doors pinged open.

"This is the private office of Benjamin Buck... vice-president of Nutriware Ltd," Adam said, helpfully.

"Yes, yes," Beckett said, and strode into the office, seeing the man in the big chair, and taking it that he was the man he needed. What was his name again? Ah, yes, Benjamin. Beckett looked at a chair that had been pulled up in front of the desk, and made himself comfortable. Mercer stood just behind and to the side of the chair, looking warily form Benjamin—to Adele.

"You must be the infamous Cutler Beckett," Benjamin said with a small smile.

"Firstly, it's Lord Cutler Beckett, please use my proper title," Beckett said, blinking, "Also, you haven't yet offered me a drink, which is plain rude—and lastly, you have something on your face." Beckett arched an eyebrow, and did not return the smile.

Benjamin hated the man already.

"_Lord_ Beckett," He said heavily, "We have no time for drinks now. But if you are feeling so parched..." He pressed down on a button and said in the general direction of the tiny microphone attached to his desk, "Please bring up some drinks,"

"Who are you talking to?" Beckett said, wrinkling his nose. Mercer would have looked behind him, but he was too busy glaring at Adele. Ever since they'd walked into the room, Mercer and Adele had both stood stock still, glaring at each other. The two subordinates, so to speak. Mercer stood with his legs slightly apart, his arms behind his back, his eyes narrowed. Adele, on the other hand, had her feet together, her weight more on one then the other, and her arms were folded—she didn't show dislike, just a light superiority, on her face.

"You have a lot to learn about the future, Lord Beckett," Benjamin said with a small smile, steeping his fingers, as the doors swished open behind Beckett and a woman stepped in with a tray of glasses and a bottle of some brown liquid.

"I do," Beckett said. The bluntness of his reply made Benjamin even madder. Sly and tricky one second—and then honest and short the next. It was infuriating. "But before we go into that... please explain to me in full detail why you have decided to kidnap me from my boat and bring me far into the future."

So Benjamin did. It took a while—and Beckett would stop him every now and again to ask a question—but eventually, it was all explained; Davy Jones, Nutriware Ltd, New Pirates, and a whole lot more of it.

"And you want me to help you control Jones to help you kill these... New Pirates?" Beckett asked.

"Yes," Benjamin said with a nod. There was a pause, as Beckett took a sip—and then frowned severely.

"What is this?" He demanded.

"It's coca cola," Benjamin said with a wide smile, "It's a... future drink." As you can see, the same brands still haunt the markets to the future day.

"Disgusting," Beckett muttered, putting it down.

"Anyway, back to matters...?" Benjamin said, raising an eyebrow.

"And why should I help you?" Beckett asked, leaning forwards. Mercer and Adele had not ceased their glaring match, even after the two hours it had been. Beckett didn't ask his question in a taxing manner though—he sounded more amused. Benjamin had him in the bag.

"Why, to rid the world of those scummy pirates, of course," Benjamin said lightly, though his tone changed as he continued, "And the amount of money it would save Nutriware Ltd is substantial."

"Money," Beckett said with a sneer, "The root of all evil... I think not."

"We are both men of business, Beckett," Benjamin said, not bothering with the 'Lord' anymore. Beckett did raise an eyebrow, but didn't comment on it. "We both know the value of money, and how it... it makes the world go round."

"It does what?" Beckett asked, frowning.

"It... never mind. Are you going to help us?" Benjamin smiled, though it was somewhat forced. He was trying to keep smiling, but smiling at someone like Cutler Beckett was making his face ache.

"Hmm... alright, then," Beckett said, finally, "But I would like payment."

"Certainly," Benjamin said, glad that Beckett probably knew nothing about the rate of inflation these days.


	12. ELEVEN

ELEVEN

Beckett was led to his room, and he stalked inside, folding his arms. The door closed behind him, politely, and he heard no click of it locking. He hadn't been subjected to the invisible doors that Davy had, but it was still weird; you simply had to touch this little pad where the doorknob should be, and then it opened. Beckett had been thrilled at first, but now he was simply perplexed by it all.

Mercer had another room, one opposite him. Their rooms were very much guest-rooms—and not really made especially for them. There was a double bed, a small en-suite bathroom, a sofa and a cabinet, a wardrobe, a desk, bedside tables, and a computer... not that Beckett knew what it was. And anyway, they were different now; computers had replaced the television, and transmissions were now watched on them instead, and videos were long gone; only DVDs were used.

He stalked up to the door, and touched the small panel; the door swung forwards, and he pushed it open all the way. He looked up and down the deserted corridor. Hmm, so they weren't utterly stripping him of his dignity by posting guards then. He wandered across the hall and opened the door there, walking into Mercer's room.

"Strange, isn't it?" He asked, making Mercer spin around. He had been closely examining the inside of the wardrobe—which contained a couple of white bathrobes and some slippers.

"I don't like it, sir," Mercer said in his Manchester lilt, closing the wardrobe door with multiple clicks.

"I don't either," Beckett said softly, "But don't worry. I have never failed to come up with an escape plan."

----------

"Jones. Time to meet an old friend," Benjamin said with a smile, as Davy walked into the room, and froze as Beckett turned in his seat.

"Hello there, Jones," He said with a light sneer, "Fancy seeing you here."

Davy looked from Benjamin to Beckett, whose expressions were eerily similar, and then with a growl he turned and stormed from the room, knocking an unfortunate worker out with a swing of his claw and rendering him unconscious for the next three hours.

"That could've gone worse," Beckett said, with a smile.

"So, now that you're here, he'll do as I tell him?" Benjamin asked, curiously, "And what gave you such power over him?"

"Well," Beckett said, jauntily, "I have his heart."

"His heart?" Benjamin frowned, and he and Adele exchanged puzzled looks. Davy's heart had been missing from his chest. And this man had it...?

"Yes," Beckett said, "It's quite a story. I suppose you want to hear it?" Benjamin nodded wordlessly, and Beckett cleared his throat, standing up from where he'd been leaning back easily in his chair. "Davy Jones used to be an ordinary man like you or I—a proud sailor, one of the best sea captains in the world... he had quite a name for himself, a long time ago. But then... then he made the biggest mistake of all," He smiled coldly, reciting a story told and retold many times.

"What mistake did he make?" Asked Benjamin, transfixed. Adele perched on the end of his desk, arms folded, looking as disinterested as she could, and occasionally shooting a spiteful look at Mercer.

"He fell in love. He fell in love with Calypso—the goddess of the sea. She gave him the task of ferrying souls lost at sea, and if he would do it for ten years, then he would have proven himself worthy, and they could be together forever," Beckett moved his arms and hands as he talked, using body language to get his point further across, sweeping his hands in front of him. "But after ten long years of hard, hard work, he came back; and found that she wasn't there."

"Why? Did she die?" Asked Benjamin.

"Don't be stupid," Beckett scoffed, "She just didn't bother. I think that legend has it that she didn't want to become predictable—so she didn't turn up. And Jones was so torn apart... so broken... that he got a dagger, and cut out his heart, his immortality from guiding the souls leaving him still alive." He paused, "And since then, he cannot be killed. By anyone." Then he smiled, "Anyone, that is, apart from the person who has his heart. He who stabs the heart of Davy Jones can kill him—nothing more, nothing less." He finished his story with a flourish. Mercer rolled his eyes; Beckett always did like being centre of attention.

"And you have the heart," Benjamin said, leaping to his feet, "But that's... that's brilliant. That sort of thing just doesn't happen in the future. It's like... magic." He smiled meaningfully at Adele, who simply pursed her lips.

"Actually, I don't have the heart at the moment, do I?" Beckett said, smoothly. "My heart is back in my times." He raised an eyebrow.

"Just the fact that you possess the heart should be enough, shouldn't it?" Benjamin asked with a frown.

"Not really. Very... ah... stubborn, is Davy Jones," Beckett sat back down in his chair, now that the story was over. "He'll need pushing. You have to practically wave the heart in his face to get him to do what you say. And even _then_, he doesn't always follow orders..." Beckett narrowed his eyes. Benjamin felt that he must have some experience in this area.

"Alright, then. I'll send the team back," He said, carefully.

"Oh, but you'll need me there too, of course," Beckett said, "I'm the only one that knows where the heart is. Well, my aide and I are the only ones."

"...and you are just so determined to return to your time," Benjamin said, and this time it was he that narrowed his eyes. "I'm not that stupid, Beckett. I'm not going to let you get away."

"I have no idea what you-,"

"I said partnership, Beckett, but in actual fact you are working for me," Benjamin said, turning towards Beckett; Benjamin had been pacing the room. "I'm in charge here, and you are not getting away. This is my plan. Get used to it." Beckett had drawn his eyebrows together in a look of slight distaste by now.

"Nobody is working for anyone here," He said, finally. "If I didn't want to work _with_ you, I wouldn't have told you the tale of Jones and the heart. And if I don't want to work with you now—well, I can simply forget where I keep the heart, and you'll never have control over him..." Beckett leaned back in his chair, a small smile tugging at his lips.

"If you don't give me the information, I can have you tortured until you do," Benjamin snapped—Beckett's smile slipped off of his face, and he frowned.

"How uncivil," He drawled.

"You will go with the team to get the heart back," Benjamin finally said, "But don't try any escape plans. They will find you. And just as an extra measure..." He looked to Adele, who raised an eyebrow, but let her hand creep towards where she kept her laser, in an inside pocket, and Benjamin continued, "...we will be keeping Mister Mercer here. Hostage, to put it bluntly." Adele, now realizing her orders, pointing the laser at Mercer, the red aiming-dot appearing on his chest. He scowled.

"I see," Beckett said, emotionlessly. Benjamin jerked his head back, indicating to Mercer to step next to Adele, who had now slid off of the desk and was standing, her arm rigid, the laser aimed directly at him. Mercer walked next to her, throwing her a dirty look. She just smiled coldly, now standing slightly behind Mercer, the laser looking much less deadly then it actually was.

The red dot was now on Mercer's back, but the 'barrel' of the small, black cylinder—which was jammed in between his shoulder blades—covered it. Mercer felt the plastic against his back, thinking about how he was one push of a button away from having his heart stopped. Benjamin smiled coolly, now over his anger; he liked being in control.

Now, Benjamin is a slightly explosive person—as you may have seen. He was like a spoilt child... well, he was childish, in any case. Every emotion he felt went to extremes—when he was happy, he was delighted. And when he was angry... it burst out of him, like a miniature tantrum. He wasn't good at keeping his emotions hemmed in—unlike Adele, who was the very opposite.

"Very well," Beckett said, his expression unfathomable as he rose, getting to his feet gracefully. He nodded once at them, and then turned and left—and was flanked by one of the guards who had been instructed to keep an eye on him.

Mercer wondered if this was the last time he would ever see Beckett. Good assassins were hard to come by, true, but he knew that he didn't really mean that much to Beckett; they had no friendship to speak of. There was no sense of companionship when he guarded him—it was just work. A baker bakes, a butcher butchers... and he worked as an assassin for Beckett so that he didn't get his hands dirty. It was a simple arrangement.

_No_, he decided, _Beckett's going to try to escape._

----------

As Davy stamped back to his cell, wishing he had his organ to vent his anger on, he realized that a couple of guards were following him like dogs. Every single entrance for the top ten floors or so had guards—the elevators, the exits, and suchlike.

Exits, on floor two hundred and fifty six?! Why, yes. Every skyscraper in the city is connected by a series of walkways that travel through the air, one to the other—they're not that long, as the skyscrapers are so tightly packed, there is a gap of only about twenty feet between most of them. Oxygen and high-altitude winds? Well, the walkways were well protected, with glass barriers that go up about eight feet, and curve inwards... so it's a little like walking through a glass tube, with a gap at the top.

Cars were banned, after the horrible effect they had on the environment—and anyway, nobody went to the ground floor any more, so there was no point in having a car, was there? Some people who still lived in the slums down there had their own illegal cars, and did even more illegal racing sometimes, but nobody cared about them.

A main source of transport between the skyscrapers, apart from by foot, were elevators that go sideways as well as up and down—huge elevators, that acted as a sort of bus—and there was also the monorail system, which wound around the skyscrapers, travelling to cities and suchlike... and there were still aeroplanes and airports, with huge landing and taking-off areas spread out across the top of many skyscrapers.

The world had changed a lot.

As is evident.

* * *

**NB:** Writing the future is fun. :) 


	13. TWELVE

TWELVE

"And now can you escort Mister Mercer to his cell, Miss Merritt," Benjamin purred, once Beckett had gone, "And be sure to come running right back."

"Sir," Adele muttered, turning off her laser and it's aiming point—though it was still in her hand, ready for use. She didn't need the laser on to take Mercer to his cell; he was weaponless, and had no means of escaping, and no reason to escape in any case. She gave him a shove in the small of his back, and he scowled at her as they exited the office, side by side.

"What a cute couple," Benjamin said to himself, before taking a sip of coca cola.

----------

"Do you like Benjamin Buck?" Mercer asked Adele as they travelled down the elevator. Adele shot him a frowny look, as if asking why he was talking to her, and replied snappily.

"What does it matter to you?" She narrowed her eyes, "Do you like Cutler Beckett?"

"Not much," Mercer said, after seeming to mull it over, "But he's an interesting man, he is. One that his enemies ought to watch." His brown eyes suddenly flicked to her face from the opposite wall, in a rather unnerving way, "I think you and your boss had better keep a very close eye on him indeed, Adele Merritt."

The elevator doors pinged open.

----------

Davy was not a happy bunny.

Cutler Beckett. That swine. And he was here—and now he'd have to do whatever Benjamin commanded. Those two were like peas in a pod; manipulative, money-obsessed, and irksomely cunning. Now, it wasn't that much of a bad life, bossing a bunch of pansies around on a ship... but he didn't want to do it now, simply because he was being told to do it.

It just works that way.

So, apparently, soon he'd be sent back to the _Stalker II_ to begin his murdering crusade—oh, what fun that was going to be. He hated following orders; and this was going to be an entire... well, how long was he going to be here exactly? He supposed he didn't care that much, since in this world his heart would be being held ransom by Beckett... and in the other one, oh, his heart would be being held ransom by Beckett.

Joy.

----------

After dropping a smirking Mercer off in his cell, Adele turned and began walking back towards Benjamin's office, her face emotionless as always, though her mind was not as such.

_Do you like Benjamin?_ What sort of a question was that? He was her employer. It didn't matter whether she liked him or not. Their relationship was... professional. Liking had nothing whatsoever to do with it. And anyway, the answer to that question was no, of course. He treated her like trash. He was a complete and utter ass.

What, exactly, had drawn Mercer to ask that question? As the elevator shot upwards, she allowed herself a small frown. Was he trying the old 'turn-the-enemies-against-each-other' trick? Well, whatever he was trying, it didn't work. She easily wiped her face clean of emotion as she strode into Benjamin's office—he didn't glance up as she walked in, just started talking.

"Now that we know a little more background on dear Davy Jones, I think I know why the whore trick didn't work," Benjamin clicked his tongue. Adele took her usual place, leaning on the side of his desk.

"And?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, obviously it wasn't going to work on Davy. But why not Beckett?" Benjamin asked. Adele's other eyebrow joined the other, rising to the top of her forehead.

"Is that a good idea?" There was a lot of doubt in her voice.

"There's nothing to lose," Benjamin said with a smirk, "And the thought is just priceless, isn't it? And anyway, I think it was common for men of high status to go looking for prostitutes in those days." Unlike now, when it was illegal. Still—anything described as illegal was definitely happening on the ground floor. It was in its nature.

"Hmm..." Adele stood, and faced away from him, "I'll go find someone suitable, then. But I doubt someone like Beckett is stupid enough to fall for some slag."

"It would be amusing, though. Oh, and Adele?" Benjamin asked. Adele had a small inkling of what may be coming, but she hoped that Benjamin would have forgotten about that. "Speaking of the honey trap plan—have you even _spoken_ to Jones since our little arrangement?" Adele closed her eyes and leaned her head back, inwardly groaning.

"No. There hasn't been the time." She finally said. "But..." He raised an eyebrow, and Adele started again, "There's no point in this plan any more. As long as we have the heart, Davy is under our control... so..." She looked slightly hopeful. Benjamin laughed.

"Extra precautions, Adele," He said, wagging a finger. Adele glared at him, and then turned and walked briskly out of the room. He leaned back. "And for my amusement, of course," He said to himself with a smirk, once she was gone.

----------

Adele stepped out of Benjamin's spacey office, into a long, and empty corridor. She walked down it, around a corner, and got to some large doors, guarded by security. She was allowed through without a hassle—and she stepped into a large white room with a skylight, which had plenty of people walking around in. There were benches, a couple of stalls selling food and some drink machines, but most people were just passing through. A bunch of kids were playing with a basketball in one corner.

This was a public part of the skyscraper, which people were allowed to travel through on their way to other skyscrapers. She walked to a huge, glass pair of doors at one end, and stepped out—out of the skyscraper. There were the walkways—they clung to the side of the skyscraper, going around it, and there were steps from one floor to another, and walkways that went out over thin air to other skyscrapers.

She walked to an elevator that was on the outside of the skyscraper; there was an entrance to it from the walkway itself, it's huge glass barriers reflecting people walking below. The elevator was also glass, and it shot down the building, with people filing in and out, until it reached floor fifteen—by then, it was empty.

The elevator was not meant to go any lowered then this. The smog was a couple of floors below them, swirls of blue mixed in with dark grey. The chemicals in the air weren't hazardous today, judging by the paleness of the blue; though if the blue became too bright, it was a little more dangerous. Adele looked at the digital pad on the wall of the elevator, which you used to type in the floor number you wanted.

She pressed the zero button three times, and then typed in a three-digit PIN number. The elevator began sweeping down to ground floor.

----------

Renee Stratford was dumb.

It wasn't her fault. And it wasn't something you generally said to people. But it was the truest and most known thing about her. She couldn't help it—it was just the way she was. Probably the dumbest girl you could ever meet.

Against all of the odds, she wasn't blonde. Her hair was a tousled chestnut, coming down in half-curls, with highlights of pink—to go with her eyes. Pink eyes?! No, no contacts! But no, this isn't some terrible Sue... it was surgery on the colour of your iris. _Everyone_ was getting it these days—red, pink, bright green, aquamarine; you could have rainbows in your eyes, stars too! Amazing.

But, again, having this surgery was usually a display of dumbness, especially on and around the ground floor, where hospital conditions were terrible and surgeons had brain cells that huddled together for warmth.

She always smelt of a scent called 'Summersweet Jasmine'—it was her 'signature scent'. Just like thousands of other girls just like her, trapped in the dead-end world that was the bottom floor, working as a prostitute for money, with no other ambitions then to pay for that elongated eyelashes surgery.

So, Renee Stratford was dumb. But, unlike most of the other prostitutes down here, she had a ready smile and an optimistic outlook. She had nothing to be optimistic about, but she had an optimistic outlook anyway. She was very well meaning, in her own, dumb way—she was very easygoing, and let anyone tell her to do anything; the main reason she was in prostitution was simply because some pimp had invited her, and there was nothing else she could do.

It was strange that you would find a truly nice person down here. Mostly, everyone was out to kill, hurt and steal from each other—hey, it was a dog-eat-dog world. But Renee was a nice enough girl; mislead, and incredibly dim, but she was nice. And insightful people can tell this sort of thing.

Of course, there was a distinct lack of insightful people on the ground floor, so she was safe.

Renee walked into one of her favourite bars, aptly named the _Legless_, and went to sit at a table. This bar was not one of her favourites because she was always guaranteed a customer—it was one of her favourites because there was a dog there. Speedy was a mongrel, and one of the many dogs wandering the streets of the ground floor—in fact, they congregated into packs now. Speedy used to be one of those hard-bitten, tough dogs... but he was getting old now. He couldn't do anything but lie just inside the door of a bar and hope humans would feed him scraps.

She always fed him scraps, and talked to him. People often gave her funny looks, but she didn't mind.

This is what she was doing when a woman walked into the bar—a woman that she didn't know, though she did offer her a smile. The woman did not smile back. Now, Renee, not being the type to judge, didn't notice her clothing; but everyone else did. She was dressed up smartly, in a rather expensive-looking suit. She'd nearly been mugged many times; but those who tried now lay dead on the streets.

She was a lot more dangerous then she looked. She noted Renee's smile, and came to sit down opposite her. Renee didn't mind; any company was good company.

Adele, however, was not thinking about companionship. She wanted to find a complete and utter failure of a prostitute—some silly slapper who would completely fail to win Beckett's affections; that should prove to Benjamin that the 'honey trap' didn't work, and she would get out of having to 'seduce' some heartless half-squid _thing_.

"Are you a prostitute?" Adele asked.

"Yes," Renee said, stopping scratching Speedy's ears to smile again at Adele. Renee was pretty, in a bovine way—she hard large, soft eyes, and child-bearing hips; it was rare that someone who was more... 'traditionally pretty' to go into such a business. Most prostitutes looked 'trashy pretty'.

"Alright... answer me this question. What is the meaning of the word 'paradox?" Adele blinked at Renee, who blinked back.

"What?" She asked, with a small, puzzled sort of smile, tilting her head.

This girl would be perfect.

* * *

**NB:** Argh, sorry for the lateness in updating! I'm keeping a few chapters ahead, and I've been busy recently. 


	14. THIRTEEN

THIRTEEN

Beckett had just succeeded in breaking the infuriating blinds on the window of his room when the door slid open. He frowned slightly. Had these people never heard of knocking? _Never mind_, he thought, _I'm sure it's something of... utmost importance._ This thought brought a grimace to his face—he did not like being bossed around.

"Lord Beckett," said a sharp voice... one he recognized as belonging to Adele Merritt, Benjamin's subordinate.

"Yes?" he turned around, and saw two people had entered the room—Adele, and some other girl. She was gazing around the room as if in wonder, her face pointed upwards, like a small child gazing at the world's biggest Christmas tree.

"This is Renee Stratford," Adele said curtly, "I've brought her here as a sort of... guide for you. To make sure any questions you have are answered." Adele hadn't bothered thinking of much of a backstory. She wanted this plan to fail, after all, so what was the point in putting effort into it? The girl was going to die anyway.

"Thank you," Beckett said politely, though he seemed slightly wary. He was pretty certain that he didn't need a guide—and that this was some sort of trick. Also, her skirt was scandalously short.

"I'll leave you to get acquainted," Adele said softly, and then turned to leave, but Beckett spoke as she pressed on the door-handle-pad.

"On whose orders is Miss Stratford here?"

Adele turned her head a fraction, "Benjamin's, of course," she said, and then she left. Suspecting already, Beckett turned towards the other woman—well, no more then a girl, really—who was now looking at him. She gave her little smile.

"Hello," she said. Her voice was kind.

"Good day," Beckett said. His voice was not. In fact, it was rather cold. "I think I know why Benjamin sent you."

"Do you?" she didn't stop smiling at him warmly. But Beckett didn't let the fact that she was smiling at him warmly put him off. Why would he? Beckett was well aware on how emotions could be manipulated.

"Yes. You are a wenchy whore or a whorish wench—whichever way you like it." Beckett walked towards her, and she walked towards him, until they were at ordinary speaking distance.

"I like it both ways," she said, evenly enough.

"What?" Beckett furrowed his brow—not getting it. Of course, _he_ wouldn't.

"Do you not know what that means?" Renee asked, tilting her head. Beckett paused for a moment, as if searching his brain.

"No, I don't. Please, _do_ explain." Was he joking? Ah, who knows?

A long, and... interesting conversation followed.

----------

"Is she in there now?" Benjamin asked.

"Yes, sir," Adele said, examining her nails—what she usually did to project the feeling of boredom, and hopefully get the subject over with. It worked.

"And when shall we send Beckett and the team back for the heart?" Benjamin began fiddling with a pen on his desk—hardly anything was written on simply pen and paper these days, but pens never ceased to be useful.

"I suppose when the whore I presented him with comes back to us," Adele said.

"We wouldn't want to interrupt anything," Benjamin agreed with a smirk. Adele tried not to let a grimace come to her face, but failed. "You can go, Adele," Benjamin said with a wave of his hand, "I need to do some work. I'm sure there are plenty of productive things you could be doing too."

"Yes, sir," Adele said blankly, turning and walking out of the room.

----------

"Say 'heart' again."

"Heart?"

As Beckett said the requested word, Renee giggled again. Nearly two hours had passed, and conversation had moved to more... tasteful subjects. Still, Beckett was learning a lot from this girl. As Beckett looked at her, perplexed, she leaned down and pressed the button to turn on the computer.

"Your accent," she said, shaking her head, "It's so... British."

"Quite," Beckett said, "But Britain consists of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, each of which contain their own accents... and each of _those_ have their own accents too." He had noticed the weird accents that these people had—he was in America, after all. Future America.

"What?" Renee asked. She asked that question a lot. About one hundred times per day, on average. Probably more. She turned to the computer—which, in these times, could also be used as a television and god-knows-what else. She turned it to television-mode, and Beckett jumped as people began moving around on the screen. It was a soap opera.

"How does this work?" he asked, trying to look around the monitor—and seeing that it was flat. The people were in excellent detail, and the sound as if they were in the room. The screen was also huge... and this made things even more confusing for Beckett.

"I don't really know... but it's the fact that it works that matters, isn't it?" Renee asked. This was a deep observation for someone like her.

"Hmm..." Beckett leaned back, "I'm not sure I like this place."

"What place?" Renee asked. Adele hadn't bothered briefing her on the fact that Beckett was not of these times—anything to make her job harder, she reasoned.

"I'm... from the seventeenth century," Beckett said, after a brief hesitation. "Didn't you know that? Hence the clothing," he wrinkled his nose, "Which I find much more tasteful then any future clothing, by the way."

"You... what?" Ah, her favourite word again, "Are you really from the past? This is like a movie!" Her eyes sparkled as she clasped her hands together. Beckett rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, seeing as I've confided in you something of... relative importance," Beckett said, turning away from the perplexing screen that she had called a 'computer', and fighting the urge to ask what a 'movie' was, "I would like to know what you are really doing here."

"Oh," Renee fiddled with a strand of hair, "Well... Adele hired me," she said with a sigh, "To get your guard down. I'm a prostitute."

"I guessed," Beckett sneered.

"Yes..." The insult bounced off of Renee. Beckett felt that she was surprisingly... innocent, for a prostitute. He couldn't really imagine her having a night on the town. Then again, for money... what had to be done, was done. "But I told you. Because I like you." She smiled at him.

"Right," Beckett said, "Well, that was stupid, wasn't it?"

"What do you mean?" She asked him.

"Now I know, so... I don't have to trust you, I don't have to trust Benjamin, and I am basically in control of you." He smiled at the end. It was not a smile of kindness.

"...what do you mean?" she asked again. He leaned forwards.

"Listen, you silly girl," he said, and his voice now had a hardness in it that she had not heard him use yet, "Do you have any idea what you've let yourself into? This isn't a simple 'get-the-man' job—if you fail, you'll not be allowed to live. This mission is top secret. These people are ruthless, and they're not afraid to kill you."

"They wouldn't do that," Renee said, with a small smile.

"I think they would," Beckett leaned back, and the climatic moment was ruined by the television suddenly blaring a little jingle loudly... _I'm having chicken tonight, I'm having chicken tonight, I'm having chicken tonight..._ Beckett threw it a filthy look, and Renee laughed.

"Don't be silly, that sort of thing isn't real," she said, resting a hand on his shoulder. Beckett shot her hand a bemused look; Renee had always been a touchy-feely person, whereas Beckett... not so much.

"It's real alright, Miss Stratford," he hissed, "Now, I want information about this place. As much as you can spare."

"What sort of information?" she asked, slowly.

"I don't know. Politics. Economics. Architecture, too. Everything." Beckett doubted that she knew what any of those things meant. Nevertheless, she dutifully connected the computer to the internet, and gathered up some articles. Beckett watched interestedly. "How do you know what to do?" he asked.

"I don't know..." she said, "I've just always known." She shrugged. It was one of those things—who'd ever heard of someone who didn't know how to work a computer? Not in this day and age.

"Huh," he said, leaning back, "You're quite smart."

"Uh, thanks," Renee smiled at him again. She always smiled at him. She smiled at everyone. "No-one's ever said that to me before. You're quite nice."

"...thanks," Beckett frowned, "No-one's ever said that to me before."

----------

After another hour, Beckett was well and truly confused. He'd managed to find out a lot, but it was breaking his brain trying to figure it out. And that took some doing. Renee tried to help, but she wasn't of too much assistance, being dumb and all. Beckett sighed and turned away from the weird computer screen, which Renee was still having to manipulate, as he had no idea what he was doing. He didn't like it, but he had no control over it.

After the rather terse conversation before, things had gotten back to a reasonably sub-friendly tone again—mainly because Renee seemed incapable of arguing. If he pointed out something, she would agree. If she pointed out something, and he said he disagreed, she would somehow turn it around. Beckett would have been annoyed by such weakness in a person, finding it pathetic, but Renee had such an earnest way of doing it, that he didn't find himself pitying her—just shrugging it off. He found her idiocy endearing, in a way.

Finally, the topic of conversation found itself back to where it used to be; the Situation. Obviously, they couldn't simply leave it at that; Beckett knew that Renee's life didn't mean a flying arse to Benjamin or his creepy sidekick, and that she didn't really understand what all of this was about.

Beckett could sneer at them about how pathetic their plan was, send Renee packing out of his room, and rub the fact that he outsmarted them and they underestimated him into their faces.

And then Renee would be killed.

He had not grown emotionally attached to her or anything, and neither was he too concerned whether she lived or died. 'She's a sweet girl' was not high on his reasons for saving her life. To be honest, he needed an ally. Renee was friendly, dumb, naive and—for some mad reason—trusted him. She was just the sort of person he needed to help him crack this place.

"Renee, I am going to save your life," Beckett said, his tone become patronizing, "And we are going to have to do some acting. Do you know what _acting_ is?" Renee nodded, looking completely serious. Beckett couldn't believe this girl. "What, exactly, did they order you to do?"

"You know," she said, "Come in here. Get close to you. Then go back and 'report' to them, or whatever, once I was done."

"I see," Beckett said, wondering if Benjamin really believed him to be that much of a complete and utter ingrate. "Well, then. You will go back to them, and tell them that we had a jolly good time and all is well."

"What do you mean?" Renee asked him. _If she asks that question one more time,_ Beckett thought, _I am going to rip her head off._

"You are going to _lie_ to them, Miss Stratford," he said, slowly, and pointedly.

"Lie? Like what?" Renee was not the type to be at home with lying. She was far too... _nice_ for that sort of thing. Or perhaps dumb would be better. She wasn't the most inventive of souls. "Why?"

"Why? To save your life. I'm doing you a favour. And it'll mean they don't keep such a close eye on me, because they think I'm here willingly." He smiled, "As for exactly what you say... well, anything that comes to mind. Friendship. Kisses. Frenzied lovemaking. Knock yourself out."

"Alright..." she said, not seeming fazed by the whole, 'one slip up and these people will kill you' thing, "I never thought I'd be in a real life adventure. With someone from the past and everything." She smiled. Again.

This girl was awfully repetitive.

"Yes, now remember to keep the act up," Beckett said, pressing some urgency into his voice, "Or who knows what'll happen?" She just laughed, "I'm serious... look, this is the real thing, alright? They have these weird... 'lasers', and they use them to kill. They threatened my associate... eh... _friend_ with one. They're holding him hostage—it's all part of a plan. You wouldn't understand." At least she didn't deny it.

"Alright..." she said, again, "I wont give it away. Okay? But... how's this all going to end? Am I going to have to keep lying forever?"

"I don't think so," Beckett said kindly. He was being sort of truthful. The second he was transported back to his old world, she would probably be murdered anyway. But she would have served her purpose, so... that would be just fine with him!

* * *

**NB:** Beckett's a bit of an arse, isn't he? Updates are hectic on this story, I'm afraid! 


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